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by Lord Beveridge

FULL EMPLOYMENT IN A FREE SOCIETY
THE PILLARS OF SECURITY
CHANGES IN FAMILY LIFE

WNisr/fy

Henry and Annette in March i8j5

OR consultation on

LORD BEVERIDGE

rt2-©c<?£

INDIA

CALLED

THEM

LONDON

GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD

misTftf

21741

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
ln 1 2-point Fournier Type
BY UNWIN BROTHERS LIMITED

WOKING

MIN/Sr^

JANET

who did so much to make possible
the care of my parents
in their last years

MIN/Sr^

PROLOGUE

page

I. The Noble House of B

II. Jemima and her Brood

III. Ten Lonely Years

IV. Jeanic

V. William Ahroyd of Stourbridge

VI. A Young Lady before her Times

VII. Act III of i8yz

VIII. Recording Angel

131

IX. The Family Begins and Separates

153

X. Servants , Snakes and Sickness

*95

XI. The Family has a Home

209

XII. Scottish Interlude

231

XHI. The Family is Broken

241

XIV. Faridpur Victory

2 59

XV. The Family is United

277

XVI. Last Rounds with India

297

XVII. The Family Retreats

321

XVni. Henry s Last Station

33i

XIX. India Revisited

349

XX. Full Circle

3*55

epilogue

371

Note on Some Contemporaries of Henry

Beveridge in India

390

Postscript on Jeanie

395

Acknowledgments, Glossaries and Notes on

Illustrations, Persons and Places

397

INDEX

411

vii

mtsTfy

Illustrations and Insertions

Henry and Annette in March iSj 5 Frontispiece

Facing page

The House of B 16

David Beveridge of Dunfermline 22

Margaret Beveridge 22

Jeanie at iy 54

Jeanies Indian Home 55

William Akroyd of Stourbridge 86

Annette Akroyd at 22 87

Miss Akroyd’s School in March i 8 y 5 118

Henry at about j 5 150

Henry and Annette’s Indian Establishments 182

Judge’s House at Bankipur 214

Trio at Southport in 188 5 246

Jemima at 88 278

Herman Beveridge in July 1800 310

Pit fold, Hindhead, as rebuilt by Annette 342

Henry at jG between 374-375

Annette at jo

MINISr^y

PROLOGUE

O N September 29, 1857, a young Scot—still in his 21st
year—embarked by himself at Gravesend for India.
He had just entered the service of the East India Com¬
pany, coming out first in one of the earliest competitive exami¬
nations for that service which was open to all comers. He
was to spend four months on the voyage, in a sailing ship,
rounding the Cape of Good Hope. He was to spend thirty-
five years, with occasional absences, in Bengal; was to lose one
wife there and to find anodier there; was to have India, as
lie wrote long after, burned into him. Returning to Britain
when his thirty-five years of public service were over, he was
to spend as long again, for he lived nearly to the end of his
93rd year, in the study of India—its history, languages, rulers
and peoples—and in writing about them. In his 63rd year he
was to set out once more for India by himself on an expedition
after his own heart, to wander as a pilgrim in search of books and
manuscripts through the libraries and book marts of Northern
India, to have the entertainment of queer journeys and
chance encounters as no longer a functionary but a private
citizen.

On October 25,1872, a young Englishwoman—29 years old—
embarked by herself at Gravesend for India. She had been teaching
as a volunteer in a College for Working Women in London, had
met some of the distinguished Indians who had visited England,
and had conceived the idea of serving the causeof women’s
education in India, going out to start a school which should not
be associated with any particular creed. Her cabin companion on
the voyage—through the Suez Canal which had been opened
diree years before—was a mother going to be with her daughter
at the daughter s first confinement in the swamps of Eastern
Bengal. .1 nis daughter—herself a Scot—was the young v/ife
whom the young Scot had married a year before on his first
furlough from India. Her baby died almost at birth and she died
too. Through the chance of the cabin shared widi her modier, the
young Englishwoman and the young Scot met briefly soon after
this disaster; they met again and were married two years later, to

MINIS

India Called Them

jp a family in India and Britain; to study and argu
together for more than fifty years, till they died in the!

Sr in my care, for I am their elder and only surviving son.

For several reasons it has seemed worth while to give in this
volume an account of these two people. They were both so well
worth knowing that I should like them to be known to many.
Their story is a love story,beginning late and lasting for more than
fifty years; it shows the mutual adjustment by love of two high
and vehement natures, to use a phrase which my father in one of
his admonitions addressed to my mother about herself but which
applies equally to him. Their story illustrates an outstanding
episode in the history of the British race—our adventure in India.
It illustrates that adventure in its consequences for the happiness
and the personal relationships of those who took part. It shows
the spending of the best of the lives and energies of some of the
best of our young men and their wives and families, in a land
which always remained strange to. them, for a purpose which has
not been accomplished.

I am able to give this account for the most part, not in my own
words but in the words which these two used themselves, in
intimate letters to one another, or to relations in Britain. The
conditions of Indian life for European families meant that my
father and mother were often separated, even when they were
both, in India. On practically every day of separation they wrote
to one another, often more than one letter, and with few excep¬
tions these letters were kept by the recipient and came On to me.
From these letters, from my mother’s diaries kept continuously
for more than sixty years, and from other writings of theirs, it is
possible to get a picture of what the British adventure in India
meant in the personal lives of those who undertook it, which
sectns well worth placing on record now that the adventure is
nearing its close.

In using these letters 1 have sometimes altered the order and
' have perforce made many omissions, for both my father and
mother poured themselves out to one another profusely. What
is printed here is a small selection; I wish that I could have
printed more. Bur I have concealed nothing of substance that
could throw light on these two characters; they were people
whose every action and word and thought could stand the light.

Ml MSTfy

,§L

Prologue

nave added nothing which was not fact. No chari
■ speech in this volume is fictitious.

In the letters of Henry Beveridge of the Bengal Civil Service and
of Annette Susannah his wife, the Indian scene of fifty to seventy
years ago is faithfully recorded, for both had the gift of expression.
And both in the words of Shelley’s Preface to Alastor had minds
enriched “by familiarity with all that is excellent and majestic” in
the literature of many lands. To them books were a substantial
world, more substantial than books ever were to Wordsworth,
as real and as close to them as anything except their children and
their parents.

From both his parents Henry derived a passion for reading,
which never left him and never weakened. His retentive memory
became stored with notable thoughts and sayings in many lan¬
guages, but it was never a mere storehouse. What he had read was
always at his command in speech and writing and became part
of his idiom. When he wrote to the Government of India to
protest against his being passed over for promotion to the High
Court, he regaled the Government with a quotation from Matthew
Arnold s Essay on Wordsworth, and compared the Privy Council
to the Amphictyonic Council of ancient Greece. When as a suitor
not yet accepted he wrote to his lady-love pleading his case, he
filled eight pages out of nineteen with a discussion of John Stuart
Mill and the relations of that worthy to Mrs. Taylor. When he
suffered from toothache and proudly got relief by having the
tooth out “without anaesthetics and without howling,” he recalled
Socrates pleasure on his last day of life in being set free from
chains. In all this there was not a trace of pedantry. Henry in his
private letters written for no purpose save to pour out his mind
was as naturally allusive as Milton by art is allusive in his poetry.

My mother was a reader before she met Henry, but learned
from him to read still more. Always these two saw one another
and the practical world against a background of books.

But for both of them books were only part of their world.
With a passion for reading, they combined a love of nature, above
all in rivers, trees and gardens, and a lively interest in their fellow-
men; they were gossips both. The you ag Lady of Bankipur who
risked losing her bookish swain because she did not know who
was tha Lily Maid of Astolat; the gastronome Collector of

India Called Them

w wLo was Josh Sedley improved by foreign travel ^
of the world’s march; the learned indefatigable Indian
Pleader who in an earlier life must have been an elephant; the
polyglot fellow-traveller who brought an Italian lady-love (so
Henry hoped she was) to cheer the first days of his voyage out
from Genoa and wrote guide-book letters to her after; the otner
fellow-traveller who never opened his mouth at table except to
put his knife into it; the Bakarganj peasant ploughing a swamped
field with his baby perched for comforting upon his shoulder a 1
these and all the rest in Henry’s gallery of Indian portraits are or
were real people. All of them by now must be deadband their
children may be dead also. But, wherever tliis seemed desirable
to ;.void risk of pain to any living person, I have replaced names
by disguised initials. Some special friends, such as Wilfred Heeley,
cut off in his prime, or George Grierson, who became the distin¬
guished author of the Linguistic Survey , or Krishna Govinda
Gupta, who became one of the first Indian Members of the India
Council, or John Phear, who became Chief justice of Ceylon,
and his Lady Phear, it is pleasant to leave recorded by name.

My father and my mother were alike also in having parents
who meant much to them and who themselves had the gift of
words, by which they still can live to-day. My father Henry was
born when his mother Jemima Beveridge was in her 42nd year
and he lived to be all but 93. The period of 134 years between

the birth of Jemima in 1795 the death of Henr >' m 1929 1S
almost the greatest stretch of time that can be covered by tv o
human lives that are so nearly one life as are the lives of a mother
and her child. Jemima was born in the month in which Bonaparte’s
whiff of gr apeshot in Paris established the Directory and prepared
the way for Napoleon. Henry died two months after the crash
in the New York stock-market had launched the Great Depression
and opened the road for Hitler. My mother, Annette, and her
father, William Akroyd, covered a stretch only little shorter; she
died in 1929, six months before my father; William Akroyd was
born in 1804, the year before Trafalgar.

temima, to choose a parallel more to the present purpose than
the doings of dictators and warriors, was a contemporary of Jane
Austen’s Emma Woodbouse and made a pert remark to Robert
Owen at New Lanark; Henry lived to bum a play by Bernard

MiN/sr^

Prologue

a Surrey garden. William Akroyd, son ol a Ja< 5 :
Contemporary of George Eliot’s Felix Holt the Radical^
brought die railway to Stourbridge and lived in a Midland region
which recalls in many ways the famous account of England
changing under industrialism with which Felix Holt begins. His
daughter Annette lived to fight a losing woman’s battle against
woman suffrage.

This volume is thus a study of family life in more than one
generation. It shows in each generation how happiness comes
through family responsibilities and is little touched by worldly
success or failure. It shows how my father and mother were what
they were because of their parents and their upbringing, and how
throughout life, having found life good, they sought to repay
their debt to their parents. It shows many family echoes, in great
things and in small things. What my father wrote about step¬
mothers was an echo from his own mother Jemima. What led m_v
mother to her decision to take her children out with her to India
was the pleading of my elder sister and my mother’s memory of
what it had meant at the same age to have no mother at all. What
led my father to insist on a marriage settlement for my mother,
with many troubles that ensued, was his memory of his own
father’s bankruptcy.

The story of Henry and Annette here, like all stories told with
truth, has a moral. It suggests as a cardinal guide in human
relations that throughout life we should remember that once we
were children and that most of us will be parents.

Carlyle says that the most important thing about a man is
his religion... .It seems to me that it would be truer to say
that the most important thing about an individual man is
the character of his parents , and about a people , the race
to which it belongs. Certainly, I do not think, in looking at
the Bakarganjpeople, that the most important thing about
the majority of them is whether they are Hindus or
Mahotnedans. They were Bengalis before they were
Hindus or Mahomedans. . . .

Henry Beveridge in The District of Bakarganj; Its
History and Statistics, pp. 211-12 (1876).

It is not always , nor perhaps even often, that marriage
is the decisive act of a mans life. His choice of a pro¬
fession is generally much the more important and draws
the marriage and many other consequences after it.

Henry Beveridge in article on “Jean Jacques Rousseau”
{Calcutta Review , October 1878)

MIN/Sr^

Chapter I

THE NOBLE HOUSE OF B

I N die last decade of the eighteenth century a young man
called David Beveridge set up for himself as baker in the
ancient city of Dunfermline, once the capital of Scotland, and
still the chief town of the kingdom of Fife. He came of afamily
long established there, but he himself had been born elsewhere.
His father, marrying a stranger from Irvine in Ayrshire, had
settled among her people. But this father died there when all his
children were young. David, at the age of 14, was brought back
to Dunfermline to be started in life by his uncles.

They were well fitted to do this, for the Beveridges of Dun¬
fermline 150 years ago were vigorous people, with a strong sense
of duty to themselves and their family. In the early years of die
nineteenth century, one set of David’s relations established a
stranglehold on the municipal life of their native city, which
according to their defeated opponents they used with great free¬
dom to see that favours went to the deserving. In giving evidence
to a Select Committee of the House of Commons which in 1819
examined the work of the Royal Burghs of Scotland, one member
of the resistance movement to the Beveridges declared that these
Beveridges had directed die city council for many years. “Since
1808 die re have been 23 guild councillors in the council consisting
Gi the provost (uncle to the Beveridges) and seven of the
Beveridges and their relations, two half-pay officers who have
no property in die borough, a collector of taxes, die accountant
of ^ le Bank of Scotland of which the provost and the chamberlain
(one of the seven Beveridges) are the agents at Dunfermline, the
chamberlain s own clerk, the inn-keeper in whose house the
council have their entertainments, Mr. Bogie the brother-in-law
of Bailie Meldrum who is related to the provost, a distributor of
stamps and some odiers. , ‘’ The Beveridges left nothing to chance.
A meeting of the Dunfermline Council must have been like a
Christmas family party—with presents all round.

Tne Beveridge grip on Dunfermline was very useful to young
David in giving him a start. But he owed even more to his own

India Called Them

He was sufficiently remarkable among his fellows
Deacon of Baxters, that is to say, head of the guild of
bakers in his 25th year. Two years later, in 1797, he was chosen
as Convener of Trades, that is to say, chairman of all the seven
recognized guilds of Dunfermline. He did not himself spend much
time on municipal affairs— they were in safe keeping w r ith his
uncles and cousins—but he knew how to turn his public position
to advantage in the approved fashion of those days.

Sir William Erskine, of Torry, one of the landed gentry of the
neighbourhood, was anxious to be in Parliament, as represen¬
tative of Fife. For that the influence of the Deacon of Baxters
and Convener of Trades in Dunfermline might be important. Sir
William Erskine, who had himself no family, suggested to David
that it would be pleasant for David to name one of his sons
Erskine; Sir William would then deposit £100 in the Bank of
Scotland in the name of this son, to be drawn by him on reaching
manhood. 1 All of which appears duly to have come to pass. Sir
William did get to be elected to Parliament in 1796 and again in
1S02. David s fifth child, born in the year of this second election,
was named Erskine; having served his apprenticeship as a draper,
he decided to set up on his own account with a friend who
promised capital; the friend could not perform his promise, but
young Erskine was able to find the capital himself and, having
prospered as a draper, went on to become a manufacturer of linen,
first by hand looms and then by steam power. The £100
electoral bribe to his father was made the seed of a very large
fortune.

David, resolute and canny in trade, proved even wiser in
private affairs. While still short of 24 years of age he had die
sense to marry a very clever woman, the daughter of a local
wright or carpenter, even though she was six years older than
himself. Margaret Thomson was also of serener temper than
David, able to mitigate in their children his distinctly choleric
tendency, though not to eliminate it completely. Marrying at 30
she gave him, between 1795 and 1805, six clever, adventurous
children, with a common characteristic of resilience in difficulties,
i he spreading of these cliildren and their children, outwards over
the British Empire and upwards from small trade into professions

1 The authority for this is die MS. Collections of Andrew Jervise, Vol. V, Fifeshjre,

MIN IST/f

The Noble House of B

business, is typical of the nineteenth-century efflo:
iff the British people.

The eldest child—Elizabeth—insisted, against her parents’
wishes, in marrying a wright of a neighbouring village. When

the wages that could be earned in Fife seemed unduly cramping
for her family of seven children, the whole party of nine set off
for Australia and prospered greatly. Elizabeth’s eldest son, Adam
Adamson, became a leading citizen of Adelaide, tier second son,
David Beveridge Adamson, became an engineer, an astronomer,
and the father by his first wife of fifteen children of whom
twelve grew up to marry and have children of their own; in his
first two capacities he constructed with his own hands a twelve-
inch reflector telescope which is still in use in a Government
observatory. As was said of him by one of his innumerable
descendants, he possessed an inventive faculty out of the ordin¬
ary, coupled with the practical ability to make the things his
imagination had conceived.

The second child—John—starting life as a baker at Crossgates
near Dunfermline, failed, and had for a time to keep out of die
way of his creditors. But starting again he contrived to qualify as a
surgeon at Glasgow, proceeded to Calcutta on an East Indiaman,
and from the profits of the voyage paid his old creditors in full.
In Glasgow he had lodged with a cousin and got engaged to the
daughter. When he got the chance of India he wished to break
the engagement, but was held to it by threats of action by her
mother. He went dirough the marriage ceremony accordingly,
declaring that he would not see his wife after it, and he kept that
word also. He went east again, only to lose all the expected
profits of his journey in a fire which destroyed, in a Chinese
harbour, the ship in which he was engaged. Returned to England,
while waiting in Deptford for another ship to India, he under¬
took a post-mortem on some sailors who had died of typhus,
contracted the disease himself, and died before 30. He was held
to be the black sheep of the family, but he was a black sheep
who, after his own fashion, paid ail debts.

Another son—David—also followed his father’s occupation
of baking, in Dumfries, and showed his riginality by introducing
a steam engine in his bakery as early as 1831; tire innovation
outraged his father the baker of Dunfermline and was described

India Called Them

;e*/of his apprehensive brothers as the ending of Davi
Mbmission. This second David, though he died young,
before reaching 50, left six children of whom three went to
Canada and one to New Zealand to establish families there.
Another son was the Erskine already mentioned who, overcoming
early difficulties, made a great fortune by manufacturing linen.
Before he was 40, he had passed from being “Mr.’ like his baker
father to being Erskine Beveridge, Esq., of Priory Lane, whose
gardener v/on prizes for him at local shows. \ et another son
Robert—beginning life in banking service, had an interlude of
business ventures which ended in a crash, but in the end re¬
established himself successfully in banking in London. He was
the kindest as well as the youngest of David and Margaret’s
children. When his fadier at 65 grew too old himself to do the
heavy work of baking, it was Robert who took the lead in per¬
suading old David to retire and in arranging for the four surviving
sons jointly to make up their parents’ income to £80 a year.
David and Margaret had kept themselves and spent on their

children, but had made no wealth.

The remaining child of David and Margaret Beveridge has
been left to the last here, because he calls for fuller description.
He was Henry, father of the young Scot—also called Henry
who embarked by himself for India at Gravesend in September
1857, and who is one of the two ctiief characters in this story.
This elder Henry, third in order of birth, was probably the
cleverest of David and Margaret’s six, though not the most suc¬
cessful. But he had a full share of family resilience in misfortune.

Like so many clever boys of families such as his in Scotland,
Henry the elder was designed by his parents for tne ministry.
He was sent to the University of Edinburgh and passed through
it with great success. He became a licentiate of the church of
Scotland and a preacher whose discourses, according to his
obituary notice, were distinguished for felicitous arrangement,
logical power, and argumentative fervour. His declared profession
was still that of preacher of the gospel when, at the age of 29,
he married Jemima Watt, nearly four years his senior; as his
father had done, Henry went up the ladder of age, not down it,

in choosing a wife.

Jemima came from the same lowland stock as Henry, but on

The Nolle House of B

sides from families slightly higher in the social and eco
ian his. Her father’s family—the Watts—had been
iol 9 ers direct from die Crown of twenty acres of land at Both-
kennar in Stirlingshire, with a family tomb in the church diere.
They were inordinately proud of diis tiny strip of land, but it
provided no means to idleness. It was rather a jumping-off
ground for good opinion of themselves; it was an heirloom
rather than an estate. Jemima’s mother’s family—the Shirreffs—
widiout die heirloom were of the same type as the Watts. Bodi
families produced from time to time or inter-married widi
successful doctors, comfortable clerics, merchants, underwriters,
captains of East Indiamen; farther back among die Shirreffs was
one who had been in succession a farmer, a brewer and an inn¬
keeper. Still farther back was a Shirreff glory comparable to the
ancestral estate of die Watts—an ancestor who had been a wig-
maker, a friend of Tobias Smollett and the reputed original of
Strap in Roderick Random.

Jemima’s own father, Alexander Watt, like Henry the elder,
had been trained for the ministry, but developed conscientious
scruples and became an excise-man. He died before Jemima
was born. But an underwriter uncle who did not marry provided
for the education of Alexander’s children, and in due course made
Jemima and her elder sister Jane into heiresses, with _£8,000 each.

Henry the elder and Jemima, having married, set out to com¬
memorate their parents in their children. The first four children,
coming conveniently boy and girl, were named for their four
grandparents, David Beveridge, Euphemia Shirreff, Margaret
Thomson, Alexander Watt. W ith the fifth child a start was made
on the next generation and Henry had his father’s name. Pre¬
sumably a sixth child, if a daughter, would have been Jemima,
and, if a son, would have been James, a standard name for Watt
boys; Jemima herself had been christened under her mother’s
mistaken impression that Jemima is the feminine of James. But
Jemima was already in her 42nd year when, in 1837, Henry was
born; and he was the last of her children.

Henry the elder, having married money, felt able, two or three
years later, to blossom out as a landed proprietor, acquiring in
the western end of Fife a small wood 1 estate and house, with
the charming name of Inzievar. Here his two youngest children

i India Called Them

ler or “Allie” and Henry were born. Here his three
ehtidren David, Phemie, and Maggie were brought in infancy.
Here the five children came to know themselves as a close-knit
community, nicknamed one another, and nicknamed themselves
collectively as “the noble house of B.” 1 As the eldest of them
wrote long after, the early remembrances and affections of all the
children ever circled round the beautiful Inzievar home. 2

The only flaw in this paradise was the absence of an income.
Shortly before his marriage, Henry failed to get a regular preach¬
ing post which he coveted; marriage to an heiress seemed to open
the way to change of profession. He acquired Inzievar in part as
a business venture; his preaching fervour began to run dry; he
abandoned the ministry altogether and was admitted as Advocate
to the Scottish bar. But for Henry the elder, as for so many
others, the law was never more than a nominal profession; it is
not clear that he ever earned anything at all by it. The chief
consequence of his new way of life was to increase his expenses,
for it involved being present in Edinburgh. To that city the
family, now grown to its full number, went to live for most of
each year, while keeping Inzievar for holidays in the occupation
of Jemima’s sister Aunt Jane. In Edinburgh, from a table in the
High Street, young Henry saw Queen Victoria and the Prince
Consort pass in procession to the Castle. He heard his elders
recalling a former Royal show that they had witnessed there,
and at five years of age he gave an early demonstration of his
always enquiring mind. “How old were you, Mamma, when
George IV visited Scotland?” “Never mind,” answered Jemima,
“older than you.” She had in fact been 27 then, in 1822.

Henry the elder’s true love was neither the law which he for¬
mally espoused after divorcing the ministry, nor the business with
which later for a time he most unhappily philandered. In words
used of him by his son David, he was “literary all over.” He
planned to devote himself to reading and to writing, in particular
to the translation of religious and historical works — Pascal,
D’Aubigne, and above all Calvin—from the French and Latin
languages, 'he income that could be derived from such activities

* The claim of cousins to be part of the house of B. was recognized. Those who
prospered in Dunfermline . >n a linen factory were “the rich branch of the house of B.”

3 The name Inzievar was thought so charming by a later proprietor that he trans¬
ferred it to a fiew modern mansion, reducing the original Inzievar to "Femwoodlea.”

MIN IST/f

The Noble House of B

in the Scotland of the eighteen-forties with all the
, of the Great Disruption—soon proved too little fortmT
mtenance of a large family and of two establishments, or of
any establishment at all.

Henry the elder was always more interested in spending than
in getting. He had salved an uneasy conscience for drawing
Jemima’s money from the Funds to purchase Inzievar by the
argument that with the country being as much misgoverned as
it was in 1830 die money would be safer thus than in the Funds.
Jemima had had to defend to herself all that Henry laid out upon
his garden by the thought that though “expensive as a comfort
if k keeps him in good healdi the garden will be cheap as medi¬
cine/ 3 As his expenses mounted, Henry the elder, like Mr.
Micawber, began to pay his way by floating bills, which in accord
with the nature of bills, flew home to roost. Henry tried to prepare
against their coming by dabbling in business and by exploiting
the minerals of Jemima’s ancestral estate.

As a business man he became a shareholder in a concern known
as the East of Scotland Malleable Iron Company, and his theolo¬
gical writings were varied by an open letter written by him in that
capacity to the chairman of die company—Alexander Alison—
protesting against a proposed merger of die company with another
in the same line as a “silly shabby shameful shameless job.” This
letter, which had a second edition, led to an Answer by the
Chairman and diat to a Second Letter by Henry “in which the
Misrepresentations which have appeared under the name of an
Answer to the First Letter are finally disposed of.” The corre¬
spondence exemplifies a robusdous style of controversy hardly
known to our politer days. Henry the elder was very angry
indeed; he did not mince his words or spare his erudition. At
various points of the argument Alexander Alison of Blair Castle
found himself compared to Cowper’s Katerfelto “with his hair
on end at his own wonders wondering”; to the Vicar of Wake¬
field s fine lady Miss Carolina Wilelmina Amelia Skcggs in her
manner of dismounting from a horse; and finally and most
unfavourably to Herod,

Should you persist ... I can easily predict what the result
will be. The whole community, siureholders and non-share-
hoiders, electors and non-electors, disgusted beyond endurance

India Called Them

up, and concur, with unanimous consent, in sending yo*
ither?—To Parliament? Oh! no, Sir, no! Not
^rliament—only to Coventry.

§■>[.

Inzievar, 2nd April 1847

I am

Sir

Your most obedient humble servant
Henry Beveridge.

Alexander AJison replied to this in kind. While protesting that
he would not soil his pen with vulgar abuse such as diat of Henry,
he proceeded to asperse Henry’s motives and common honesty.
He suggested that Henry’s objection to the merger arose from
desire to supply ore himself from his own land. It was a pretty
squabble with honours in mud-slinging fairly divided.

Undoubtedly Henry was engaged at the time in seeking for
minerals on his estate. He sunk more of Jemima’s and Jane’s
fortune in boring. He persuaded his younger brother Robert to
join him in this ill-starred venture. It may safely be said that for
business of this kind Henry of Inzievar was as well suited as
Colonel Newcome.

And in the depression of trade which followed the railway
boom of 1846, he came to the same end as Colonel Newcome.
In the spring of 1848 Henry the elder and Robert followed their
brother John’s example 'and became bankrupt together. So far as
can be judged, the main blame for this rested on Henry. He had
been embarrassed already when Robert joined him and the latter
found himself paying Henry’s private debts as well as his business
ones. But Robert bore no malice; he was in theory and practice
the most Christian of the brothers. And he had an experience
and value in banking which always made him sure of a job; his
brother Henry was in a different case.

For Henry the elder and Jemima, after twenty years of marriage,
the days of landed grandeur ended. There was a distraint on the
household goods; the boys were removed from school; Jemima
gave up curling her hair; the beautiful Inzievar home was lost.
To Henry the younger, then 11 years old, insolvency remained
in his consciousness as one of the normal inconveniences of life,

always waiting round the corner.

But being only xi years old he had also a pleasanter recol-

The Nolle House of B

of the crisis. The immediate problem of the outstar
was solved by a sacrifice of capital—both of JemimaTnc
?r sister Jane. But the sacrifice did not come easily. At first
Jemima and Jane made difficulties about signing die bonds pre¬
sented to them, so Henry jumped on a boat for Hamburg—
whether to suggest that Scotland was no longer safe for him or
for some other reason, is not clear. To Hamburg, Jemima, with
brother-in-law Robert, pursued him, and there was a “recon¬
ciliation, which meant that Jemima and Jane surrendered and
agreed to sign away their gear. The party returned from Hamburg
bringing with them peace with loss of inheritance at manhood for
the eldest son, and exciting presents for the younger children.
Henry the younger never forgot the toy German stove which fell
to his lot and rejoiced him on this occasion. The financial structure

of the noble House of B had been undermined rather than
strengthened by Henry’s recourse to business. It had to be
restored and was restored by exploiting not material posses¬
sions, but the brains of its members.

Henry the elder in adversity showed his mettle and, as his son
said, recovered nobly. At the age of 50 he turned from studying
and writing for pleasure to writing to order. The family, extruded
from the paradise of Inzievar, wandered with him in pursuit of
writing occupation. The first year after the crash saw them in
lodgings at Galashiels and Duddingston; then a connection with
the publishing firm of Blackie & Sons kept diem for six years
in Glasgow and something like a home was re-established. But
this was given up for an expedition to Belfast, whither the whole
family, migrated in 1856, so that the father might edit the Banner
oj Ulster , a Presbyterian paper which twice or dirice a week from
1842 to 1870, in defiance of die generally Arian opinion of
Northern Ireland, maintained the strict principles of die Great
Disruption. This editorship lasted only a year. Henry the elder
returned to complete, largely in a succession of lodgings in
London—Hampstead, Haverstock Hill, Richmond, South Nor¬
wood, Holborn—■while he worked at the British Museum, his
last and longest work for Blackie’s. There followed two years
of failing health in a furnished ho;se in Helensburgh. Then
Henry the elder returned to die in Aunt Jane’s house at Culross
worn out at the age of 63.

India Called Them

(St

the younger once described his father as becominj
ller’s hack for the sake of the family. This is perhaps an
unduly harsh expression for the long and friendly connection with
Blackie’s, on which die family bread and butter depended. It is
true that Henry die elder did much hack work for that firm. He
wrote a large part, according to his son David as much as half,
of fat Imperial Gazetteer which Blackie’s issued in 1855. According
to the same authority, he was paid for this at the rate of is. for
104 words or 15s. for a page of 1,560 words; as die original
edition ran to 2,600 pages, Henry the elder must have written
some two million words of highly varied information in the
Gazetteer and must have earned nearly £1,000. The Gazetteer, no
doubt, was his main occupation for several years, though he
varied it by making translations. One of the works attributed to
him in die Dunfermline Bibliography prepared by his nephew
Erskine, making an odd mixture there with Calvin, Pascal, the
History of India and the East of Scotland Malleable Iron Com¬
pany, is a translation from French of a work of veterinary
science: How to Choose a Good Milk Cow; tliis work does not
bear Henry’s name but has many excellent engravings of French
cow r s. No doubt Henry the elder did other hack work of this
nature. But Blackie & Sons also made it possible for him to
undertake under his own name a task more to liis taste, in writing
a three-volume Comprehensive History of India , from the earliest
times to the end of the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. The first numbers
of this began to appear in 1858, when India was much in the
news and when die two younger sons of the family were already
in that country. Henry the elder, according to his son David,
planned this work as his chefd’auvre and, though now superseded,
it was the first of its kind. Whether or not it rewarded the pub¬
lishers, it provided an indispensable income for Henry die eluer,
more pleasantly than the Imperial Gazetteer or the Milk Cows
had done.

The Imperial Gazetteer did more than provide an income. It
anchored the family to Glasgow for six years, and thus made
possible their one good investment. Henry the elder and Jemima,
whatever rheir troubles, had no thought of denying education to
their son c v Jemima wanted to send young Henry to Oxford,
but this was ruled out; there was no scholarsliip ladder in the

MINISr^

Elizabeth

(1795-1870)

The only girl of the family, who married
against her parents* wishes James
Adamson, unprospercus carpenter of
Crossgates. At 44, emigrated with him
and seven children to South Australia,
and found prosperity. Many descendants
in Australia.

THE HOUSE OF B.

David Beveridge -

(1770-1837)

Having lost his father at 14, started as
baker in Dunfermline at 20. Deacon of
Baxters at 24 and Convener of Trades
at 26. Resolute, stern, choleric. Married
at 23 a bride of 30.

JpHN

(I797-I826)

The black sheep cf the family who, in
his own way, paid all debts. Bankrupt
as baker, qualified bs surgeon, and from
proceeds of East India voyage paid his
creditors in full. Being held unwillingly
to engagement wi;h a cousin, married
her and left her at the church door.
Ship’s surgeon on Royal George . Died
at 29 of typhu~ contracted in making a
post-mortem.

David

(1829-1905)

In youth “Apollo,” in middle life a good
son, in age a British Museum bookworm.
Great talker arid voluminous author,
addicted 1 - driving stage-coaches. Un¬
married with no regular paid occupa¬
tion, hut amiable and cheerful always
though poor.

Euphemia Shireff (Phemie)
(1831-1907)

“Old fiddler.” Sang and played and had
looks in youth, but became chief sufferer
by her father's bankruptcy, as Lom-
panion of parents’ lodgings life; “never
had an offer.” Compared by family to
Emily Brontg, for temper, love of
animals, and capacity for hitting nails on
the head. Reached content in solitary
old age, in a cottage turned into an
aviary.

Margaret Thomson (Maggie)

4 0833-1890)

j he illustrious Miggs,” Henry’s
favourite sister and beloved aunt to his
' hildren. Married Rev. Stephen Bell of
Eyemouth; no children. After his death,
following the Great Storm of 1881,
returned to be mainstay of Jemima’s
home at Durham, Torryburn. A verse-
writer, always in heavy widow’s weeds.
Killed in a carriage accident.

Henry o[ Inzievar

(1799— J 863)

The clever boy of the family, sent to
University. Eloquent preacher, briefless
barrister, bankrupt, bookseller’s hack
and historian of India. “Literary all over,”
with a temper and a “flea-in-the-
blanket” quality, but “recovered nobly”
from misfortune. Died in over-w'ork.

married at 29—

Jemima Watt
(1795-1885)

Posdiumous daughter of Alexander
Watt, supervisor of excise, and of
Euphemia Shirreff. Nimble-witted reader
in many languages. After her fortune
had been melted away by Henry, spent
middle life scraping widi him in lodg¬
ings, but as widow for 22 years ended
“as happy as so old a person can be”
surrounded bv her children.

=: Margaret Thomson

(1764-1839)

Daughter of carpenter at Dunfermline,
•with brains, energy and serenity.

David of Dumfries
(1801-1848)

The boy who went one better than his
father. As baker in Dumfries, tried a
steam-engine in 1831. Twice married,
6 children. Two setded in Canada; one
married a New Zealander; one going to
Canada with her brothers, met and
married Rev. James Mair; after his death
returned widi 6 children to Scotland.
Descendants of high ability.

Erskine I
(1803-1864)

The successful boy of the family.
Beginning as draper, started a linen
factory widi power, made large fortune
and founded “the rich branch of the
house of B.” Twice married with 6
daughters (“the fair cousinhood of
Dunfermline”) and 5 sons, including
Erskine II (1851-1920), successor in
linen factory, archaeologist and photo¬
grapher; Henry of Pitreavie; Amelia,
who insisted on marrying Jack Erskine,
a penniless curate; Libbie, who married
her cousin Allie; Janey, on whom
Henry of Bengal once cast his eye.

Robert

(1805-1885)

The kind boy of die family. Left bank
accountancy for business partnerships
with his brother Henry in failure, with
Erskine in success. A useful man, never
crushed by misfortune. T-wice married
with 5 children, one of whom, marrying
a naval surgeon, became Lady Dick
and had naval and military sons, and
daughters.

Alexander Watt (Allie)
(18^5-1916)

“Aesculapius.” Army doctor through
Indian Mutiny. Marrying a rich cousin
from Dunfermline, retired before 50 to
domesticity (6 children) and sport. A
generous uncle.

(1) Jane Howison Goldie (Jeanie)
(1853-1873)

Granddaughter of Jemima’s “old crony”;
born in Australia, engaged before 16,
married at 17, died at 19 in Bengal with
first baby.

= Henry -
(1837-1929)
(“Henny-Penny”)

(2) Annette Susannah Akroyd
(1841-1929)

Laetitia Santamani (Letty)

(1877-1893)

Bom in Rangpur, died in Eastbourne.

William Henry (Bhaia)
(1879-^W)

Born in Rangpur.

Annette Jeanie (Tutu)
(188a- )

Bom in Bankipur.

Herman
(1885-1890)
Born in Faridpur, died in

< 81 ,

Eastbourne.

The Noble House of B

|<fen-fifties. The six-year sojourn in Glasgow, hov'evel
possible both for Henry and for his next elder brotner,
ie, full University courses on the spot. Allie took medicine;
Henry took arts and science and a large assortment of prizes. He
finished his formal education, not at Glasgow, but at Queen’s
College, Belfast, where, during his father’s editorship of the
Banner of Ulster , he entered in 1856-57 as a non-matriculated
student.

At that moment the East India Company was still in power in
India but, just before, in 1855, entry to its service had been thrown
open, with a competitive examination conducted by the Civil
Service Commission, in place of its being recruited by Directors’
nominees through Haileybury. The lure of the door that could
be opened widiout influence might by itself have caught Henry,
as it caught so many clever boys in the years that followed. But
he had two special reasons also for looking to India. Jemima’s
dearest friend, Mrs. Howison, was married to a member of the
East India Company’s medical service. Henry the elder was already
absorbed in his Comprehensive History: talk at home turned
continually to the East.

So in July 1857 Henry, from Queen’s College, Belfast, entered
for the third of the new examinations. He came out top of the list.
In the same v^.r, * the age of 22, his brother Allie qualified as
a doctor anr .ering the Army Medical Service was gazetted to
the 78th Highlanders under orders for India.

The education of these two younger sons proved the best
investment ever made by Henry the elder. At 22 and 20 each of
them was established in a career. Each proceeded to India; each
at once began to send remittances home, and continued to do so
as long as there was need. The financial structure of the poor
branch of the House of B was securely underpinned by its junior
membeis.

MINISr^

The upbringing of all the members of our family was
among books . . . . My father was literary all over . . .
whilst our mother had equally a passion for books. . . .
We saw almost no society.

David Beveridge, eldest brother of Henry, in
Memoir prefixed to his sister Maggie’s Poems.
(Printed privately, 1894.)

I see I am too apt to become my own centre .

Henry of Inzievar to his brother Robert,

July 28, 1827.

I wish I could act as I write , but I sadly fail at times .

Jemima Beveridge to her daughter Maggie
about 1855.

Men requires no help in finding out the imperfections of
his mate.

Jemima to her daughter Maggie about 1855.

After the name bankrupt became mine I ceased to curl my
hair . This is a confession I never made except to your
never to be forgotten aunt .

Jemima to her son Henry in India,

December 17, 1874.

MIN ISTfy,

Chapter II

JEMIMA AND HER BROOD

I N writing to his wife, Henry the younger once spoke
of the “flea-in-the-blanket” strain in the Beveridge family
and rejoiced that his children, through their mother, would
inherit something to steady them. “Unstable as water, thou
shalt not excel” appears to have been a favourite admonishment
for the women born or brought into this family to address to
their men. It was used to Henry by his sister Maggie, though
the justification for this charge is not apparent in his life. It was
used by Henry’s wife, Annette, to their son William when he
announced his intention of giving up the bar for philanthropy
and the study of social conditions at Toynbee Hall. It was
certainly used at one time or another by Henry’s mother,
Jemima, to his father, for Jemima combined a sharp tongue
with extensive knowledge of the scriptures.

That Henry the elder had something in him of the flea-in-the-
blanket is hard to deny: with his changes of profession, with his
moving of homes, with his excursions to Hamburg and Belfast.
He had also a full share of his father’s choler. And he had the
scholar’s common concentration on himself. “I see I am too apt
to become my own centre,” he wrote once to his brother Robert,
after giving a long account of troublesome affairs.

But this admission itself showed his saving quality of self-
criticism. And misfortune showed his strength. He turned
himself resolutely after the crash to making an income for his
family. And he did so by sticking as near as he could to his
true vocation—the life of books and thought and expression.

He had found in Jemima an equal partner. She had a nimble
wit and a passion for reading equal to his owm and perhaps more
catholic. The nimbleness of her wdt is illustrated by the account
which, more than seventy years after the event, her son David,
writing to Henry, gave of a visit paid by Jemima as a young
woman to Robert Owen’s New Lanark. The Jeanie Watkins of
this expedition, becoming Mrs. Howison and Jemima’s life-long

India Called Them

\ played later an important part in the marriages of ai
of Jemima’s children.

216 Liverpool Road,

Islington 29 July 1897.

I would have liked if you had made out your excursion to the
Owen phalanstery at the New Lanark with which I always associate
our mother’s name. I have heard her repeatedly speak of the excursion
she with the Dawsons, Mrs. Howison (then Jeanie Watkins) and
Helen Ramage then the fiancee of Provost Dawson made in a cart
from Linlithgow to see the Falls of Clyde. . . . With what simplicity
our forebears travelled, contrasted with the luxury of the present day!
The party went in a cart doubtless lined with straw and provided with
one or it might be two sacks and a bed cover laid across. William
Dawson (who however does not seem to have made one of the party)
was cut the night before in the garden gathering gooseberries by the
light of a lantern for the excursionists to take with them. Sometimes
one or two of the party would get down to ease the horse ... Arrived
at Lanark the party under the escort of die Provost who had a letter
of introduction to Mr. Owen paid the latter a visit, were received with
the greatest politeness and conducted personally over his establish¬
ment, it being remarked, however, that his attentions were more
especially directed to the pretty Miss Ramage. “Ah!” he exclaimed
in dilating with enthusiasm on all the good work he had accomplished
by his philanthropic efforts, “we have completely banished vice from
this factory. See here how”—and he pointed to a little garden in the
centre court—“not a single gooseberry has been touched.” “Well,
but Mr. Owen,” interposed Miss Jemima Watt, “consider what
a guardianship there is of them in the eyes from the surround¬
ing windows.” And the remark was doubtless correct, for slanderers
asserted that not a kailyard in the vicinity was exempt from de¬
predations.

Jemima, like most women, though with more justification
than some, had an amused contempt for the slower mental
processes of the male. Commenting on the portraits of her
parents-in-law, David and Margaret Beveridge, which had been
commissioned by rich Erskine and in which by common consent
the painter had succeeded with David and failed with Margaret,
she wTOte to her favourite brother-in-law Robert:

16/3/1830.

It would seem as if woman were as difficult to hit on canvas as
she is in society, for few except the great Masters have succeeded in

WNist^

Jemima and Her Brood

tig those shifting hues that mounting to woman’s beow
gifted observer at one glance all that her soul delights in—
abhors or meditates upon, while the veriest blockhead in the
school of art can shadow fordi the substantial lines of thought in die
mechanical animal man whose turnings of mind are like die movements
of the crocodile.

Jemima’s nimble wit she had in her from the beginning; as her
letters show it stayed with her to the end. How she acquired her
passion for books in many languages is not so clear. She did not
owe it to her father, for he died before she was born. She did not
owe it to her husband, for she was reading Homer in Greek and
translating for her amusement before she was married; Clarke’s
edition of tire Iliad published in 1825, inscribed widi her maiden
name and containing many pages of her translation, descended in
due course for use by her son Henry and her grandson William.
But, though Jemima’s fadier was dead, her mother had the sense
to believe that a good educadon is a noble heritage “very easily
carried about with us,” 1 and her underwriter uncle was there to
ensure the means of going to schools of some distinction, first
in Dunfermline and dien in Edinburgh. The Dunfermline school
was co-educational; it was kept by a Mr. Johnston who acquired
literary reputation as editor of a collection of sacred poetry and
ol a magazine bearing his name, and whose wife, Christian Todd,
"was an accomplished authoress and for many years editress of die
°” ce iarn °us Taids Magazine. The Edinburgh school, kept by
a Mrs. Major Robertson, in James Square, ranked at the time “as
oik of the first seminaries for young ladies in the metropolis.”
Die young Jemima was given the best teaching dien available
or young ladies and she repaid her teachers by a passion for

co . mc! i from a letter b y Jemima to her sister-in-law, Elizabeth Adamson
had Am* °* Tfevar s e^est sister), written just after the latter, with her seven children,
Jda emigrated from fife to Australia:

You will, of course, for some time look across the world of waters as to your home,
nut when your sons begin to settle around you, your thoughts and feelings will
gradually cluster round your own little circle, and die affairs of the old world will
ahnost escape your memory. There is such a providential disposition in woman’s
mmd to circumscribe her thoughts as well as her feelings within die walls of her - >wn
tenement. I was glad to hear your younger children were at school; a good education
widTus ” ' entage ’ and aS my honest modier used to tell us, “very easily carried about

ttlTl haS ! ali Jemima quality. It is printed in the Letters of Mam Mamson,

A n^ y ?-, and M ’ Adamson, published in ,90. in Melbourne. Adtm

Adamson was Elizabeth Adtason’s eldest son and Jemima’s nephew, became a v cfh

dm°youngcr ' C ^ “* MeM,ourne and appeared for a moment in die stony of Henry

India Called Them

lBna| ?nd for poetry in many languages. “My old wor
~Py an d Virgil,” were her constant comfort.

her two major passions—for her children and for books—
Jemima added two tastes—for long walks and for cold baths—
which equally mark her out as before her time, for it must be
remembered that she was born in 1795.

3/6/65.

“I laid great injunctions on your mother about her long walks,”
wrote her daughter Maggie to her doctor brodier Allie in India, “but
■ he is incorrigible, and slips out surreptitiously with Charlie at her
tail and wanders along the sea-cliffs for miles. The same with regard
to her bath. I have been obliged to make Stephen let on the hot water
into it before she comes to it of a morning so that she cannot cheat
as she does in the remote laundry at Culross.”

This was written when Jemima, aged 70, was staying with
Maggie and Maggie’s husband, Stephen Bell, in his manse at
Eyemouth on the Berwickshire coast. But eight years later, as
Maggie wrote to Henry, Jemima was still “going on with her
horrible cold water baths” whenever she escaped from her
children’s care.

She had the true taste for country. “Bushey Park,” she wrote
once to Henry after a London visit, “was in all its glory, but
trees with multitudes are not to my taste.”

I remember once coming down the long pastoral valley of Habbie’s
How when a pleasure excursion had brought out hundreds of men
and women and children for it seemed, an assembly of schools, and
I thought the very grass seemed offended at being so trod upon and
Logan Water ran scolding past the tables and benches set up for the
multitude. This is not a wholesome feeling but I own its power and
really feel in a crowd as if I were in a tropical sun.

Jemima liked to have things exactly as she liked them. She
was a self-willed and at times a fretful lady. In the days of her
affluence before the crash, her wedding day was celebrated
always by a particularly good dinner, but it was a capital offence
for any child or visitor to refer in Mamma’s presence to the event
which was being commemorated by the dinner; “she had,” says
her son David, “an extraordinary prudery or shyness in alluding
to such matters.” In age her fretfulness naturally grew upon her:

NIINlSr^

David Beveridge of Dunfermline

Margaret Beveridge

MIN ($7^

Jemima and Her Brood

<SL

occasion, taking a dislike to a youthful great-niece
Isiting her, she went on hunger strike until the poor child
was removed. And her letters abound with pungent comments
on her relations-in-law.

Jemima felt that she had begun life with a grievance because,
like Dean Swift, she was a posthumous child and she often quoted
Job’s words as applicable to herself. It must be admitted that her
later experience gave her better ground for fretfulness, in her
passage from an affluent beautiful home to scraping in lodgings,
with a husband who can never have been an easy companion,
and whose health under overwork and anxiety was failing.

To her “Benjamin” Henry, Jemima once wrote:

But oh baim, it is sad to feel that you can no longer be kind and
hospitable. . . .

We are worried with Belfast letters about rent and furniture. I
sometimes feel the bitterness of being thought a swindler. . . .

After the name bankrupt became mine I ceased to curl my hair.
This is a confession I only made to your never to be forgotten aunt.
All! that was a blinding blow to my pride. I knew I could bear poverty
but to see ruthless folks carry off my household gear crushed every
spark of self-complacency and pride of honesty.

To Aunt Jane herself in Henry the elder’s last year of life and
aaxieties for work, she WTOte:

My friend here is not altogether fit to be left alone, albeit is up
early and late in his own room. Dr. Blackie’s silence keeps him in a
fever and you know when once the steam gets up there comes a
fearful haste and hurry.

To her most understanding daughter, Maggie, Jemima wrote
most frankly on this same theme:

Man requires no help in finding out the imperfections of his mate.
Or again:

There are minds which cannot be idle with safety to themselves or
comfort to their neighbours.

Or again:

You or Phemie had better inquire after his health but allude to no
probable cause save the weather, for at times there are certain under-

MIN ISTffy,

India Called Them

heavily laden with sunken wrecks that set in upon his . ..
ise much turmoil in the bod}', working amidst its complicated
machinery like cabals in the Cabinet. Ergo, my bairns, it behoves us
to treat these disturbances gently and seem not to know of their
existence. I wish I could act as I write but I sadly fail at times.

But through all Jemima’s troubles, her books, her humour and
the love of her bairns sustained her. She was certainly justified
in her children. One of the five was killed in a carriage accident
in her 59th year; the other four lived to their 76th, 77th, 81st and
93rd years respectively. And when Jemima herself came to her
end in her 90th year, four of the five children were round her;
the fifth could not be there, because he was in India.

With Henry the elder and Jemima as parents, the nature of the
children’s upbringing was a foregone conclusion.

The upbringing of all the members of our family was among books
and everyone of us was more or less characterised by the literary
tendency. My father was literary all over, varied only by theological
and political proclivities, whilst our mother had equally a passion for
books, but was much more thoroughly imbued than her husband
with the spirit of poetry and romance. The former was wont to
disclaim all pretensions to the role of a votary of the muses and with
the exception of the works of Milton and the political satires of
Drvden he exhibited no enthusiasm for our poets widt the lucubra¬
tions of most of whom, however, he was well acquainted. . . .

We saw almost no society and had scarcely any social intercourse
except widi a few intimate friends. Our chief amusement tvas walking
exercise, in which, indeed, whether we would or not, we were most
systematically drilled; whilst indoors our principal recreation was
books, of which the house contained a plethora of all kinds, and it
must be admitted that in the department of children’s story books
there was abundant store. So that diere was little fear of any imaginative
faculty that might exist amongst us youngsters being starved for
want of nutriment. . . .

So wrote Jemima’s eldest son David Beveridge in a Memoir
prefixed to a privately printed volume of Poems by his sister
Maggie.

The dominant influence in the formation of Henry’s character
was that of his parents. He declared that till manhood he owed
little to any other teachers, whether in school or in university.

MIN ISr/f

Jemima and Her Brood

(CT

lit faituJyLj

owed much also to Ills membership of a close knit
of brothers and sisters. As they will come into the story,
something must be said briefly about each of them.

The first-born David had been brought up in expectation of
being able to be a scholar without troubling to earn his living.
In youth he was strikingly handsome, as his family nickname of
Apollo shows. He was like Apollo also in being a charioteer;
how or when this simple Scottish youth acquired the art of
driving a four-in-hand is hard to say, but he did acquire it and
throughout his life seized every opportunity good and bad of
handling the ribbons. 1

The family crash hit David just as he was reaching manhood
and he never established himself in any paying career. For a time
Blackie & Sons found hack work for him as well as for his
father, and he made Glasgow his centre. Of one of the works on
which he had been engaged he wrote to Henry: ‘The Sheepfold
has long since been finished and I hope I may never again have
such a job given me.” Undoubtedly The Sheepfold and the Common ,
or Within and Without , to give it its full title, would be regarded
to-day as a singularly repulsive work. It was a re-hash of “Tales
and Sketches illustrating the Power of Evangelical Religion”
issued twenty years before by a well-known preacher, Timothy
East, under the title of The Evangelical Rambler . It could only
have found a market for reading on Sundays when everything
else was barred. From it poor David turned with joy to more
exciting tasks of making an Index to the History of England
and compiling many articles in Chambers’ Book of Days.

Henry from youth to age regarded David as his responsibility.
He felt that David the eldest son, in losing an expected inheritance,
had been the chief sufferer by the family crash. No sooner had
Henry reached India than he began to explore the possibility of
getting work for David there as well. “I should certainly have

1 Tliis taste sometimes caused embarrassment to his kinsfolk. On one of his visits to
Culross from India, Henry told his wife how he got a shock at Alloa.

David was on the box and drove us to Kincardine. I crept inside and endeavoured
to look as unconscious as possible. He got hold of the reins again on the way from
Kincardine to Culross but I got out a mile or two from the town and walked.

When David went to stay, as lie did often, with his rich and hospitable cousin, Erskine
Beveridge the second, at Dunfermline, he loved to drive his cousin's barouche through
the city streets. The sight of this familiar vehicle of their business prince under the charge
of die stately white-bearded patriarch that David became produced a sensation among
the tow nsfolk.

21741

India Called Them

tion,” David wrote to Henry in 1858, “to a profes’
petmp'it Calcutta should such things be established there,
the present must be contented to jog on at the old trot a little
while longer. I shall, however, keep a sharp look out for any
opening. I have nothing to complain of in the conduct of the
Blackies except perhaps their delay in announcing an augmen¬
tation of screw, but the last winter has been a period of depression

in all trades.”

Though the chance did not come his way, David would have
made a perfectly good professor. He was chock-full of learning
and loved the sound of his voice; he was by nature an amiable,
industrious book-worm and a voluminous author of the unsale¬
able. As his brother Henry said of one of his books, after one-
third of die first draft had been cut out, there was still a lot of
whey in it.

David was not only a born professor but also an admirable
son. Left to himself he would have lived always within reach of
the British Museum Reading Room, and of the varied sights of
London. But for more than twenty years of Jemima’s widowhood
he lived with her at Culross, keeping her and his sister Phemie
company, with only an occasional pilgrimage to the Bloomsbury
Mecca. Some seven years after the letter about the Calcutta
professorship, when at 37 the hope of an independent career was
fading, he was writing to Henry from Culross that he felt “like
another Mr. Micawber waiting for something to turn up.” A
classical Encyclopaedia projected by another publisher was being
held up, but David was preparing himself for it in hope, by
grinding away at the Classics, and was longing to go back to
London. “I am sick of unproductiveness. I can scarcely call it
inaction as I get up at 5 and work as hard as ever.” A letter of
Jemima’s at this time confirms this early rising to work at the
classics and paints a picture of how happy life would be if David
could get some regular employment in writing by day, which
would leave him free to read Greek plays to her in the evenings.

3°/3/<S5

He read Hecuba to me the other night* What a sameness there is
in human nature.

There were of course consolations in the Culross life. David’s

Jemima and Her Brood
published works on Culross and Tulliallan and Betwt

and the Forth dealt with local history and topography. He
was allowed pretty regularly to mount the box of die local stage
coach. He devoted himself with success to ejecting a local
minister who was clearly unfit for the job, but he was not equally
triumphant in getting the vacancy for the brother of a friend.

Mamma” (she was dien 86) “cannot walk far, but walked to
church to vote for James Goldie who however lost the election.
. . . The Culross people are a senseless ungrateful pack and one
might have expected better wage at their hands after having rid
them of an encumbrance.”

While Jemima lived, there was a material reason of economy
why her unemployed elder children, David and Phemie, should
live with her. They made a joint household supported largely by
the younger children, Henry and Allie. With Jemima’s death
David succeeded to the rents of her ancestral estate, and to a
third of the ,-£500 to which Jemima’s fortune was sunk; he
acquired another third also which his sister Maggie surrendered
to him. He established himself in lodgings in London and, with
Henry to help him at need, settled down to haunt the libraries
and to produce an endless work on The Scot in London . After
going the round of publishers the Scot never saw the light. No
publisher would take him at publisher’s risk and David was not
prepared to sacrifice for him any part of the ancestral estate
which, as he said, “stands between me and the deep sea.”

^ Ul f a H ure to publish did not destroy David’s happiness.
Counting his blessings of good health and good memory he
remained to his last days in continuous cheerful correspondence
with Henry, on obscure points of philology and history, and on
family affairs modern and ancient. The oldest child of the noble
house of B was like the youngest in being a bookworm, a gossip
and a contented spirit, in spite of the material failure of his life.
David, in solitary poverty in London, never lost zest for new
experiences, whether of listening to a church service in Danish,
or being the guest of an omnibus company on a picnic to Epping,
or learning Anglo-Saxon, or walking many miles through London
in the small hours to meet a niece at Tilbury. He retailed all the
gossip of the family, in the present and from the remote past: as
a brother older by seven years he was able to give Henry a

MIN ISTff

India Called Them

ding illustration of the identity of Roman Thule with
of Foula: “You will hardly recollect (but I do) the days
when you spoke of your ‘Fumbs.’ ” He talked of writing a
philosophic novel. Every now and again he got his old crony,
Mrs. Goldie (she was the daughter of Jemima’s crony, Mrs.
Howison, and has much to do in Henry’s story), to London and
with her he went the pace of the London theatres. At other times
he made expeditions to Fife, and renewed his youthful memories.

Only one new experience of Henry’s did David at the age of
68 firmly reject for himself. “Eleven miles in an hour is certainly
fast travelling, but I cannot interest myself in bicycling.” David
after all was master of an older and rarer art than bicycling. At
the age of 66, after years spent as a British Museum bookworm,
David found himself still able to handle a high-spirited team of
four; from one of his expeditions to Fife he reported this achieve¬
ment to Henry; he had been tooling a set of magnificent black
steeds belonging to “no less a personage than Sir Arthur Halkett.

David refused to be unhappy though poor. He retained always
spirit to laugh at “the peculiar miseries of the rich.” 1 he phrase
is in a letter of David’s commenting on the news that his pros¬
perous brother Allie, having failed to get the country house lie
wanted for August shooting, was sitting in dudgeon in Edin¬
burgh. “Were not the hotels in Scotland open to him?” asked

David.

In truth, the chief sufferer from the crash was not David but
the elder daughter Phemie. There was no real reason why the
eldest son should not have earned his living like the younger sons;
David, though he did not earn much of a living, had the kind of
life that he enjoyed; he knew that Henry would never let him
starve. But daughters of such families as Jemima’s were not in
those days prepared for paid careers or expected to take them.
Phemie was not a generation removed in time and not at all in
outlook from Jane Austen’s Charlotte Lucas: “Marriage .. . was
the only honourable provision for well educated young women
of smail fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must
be their pleasantest preservative from want.” Phemie, in spite of
her family nickname of “old fiddler,” had looks and brains and
accomplishments and would have made an entertaining wife for
a clever husband; she had n gift of observation and a knack of

Jemima and Her Brood

; remarks which hit the nail. She had also a sausfyimfrl^fe
aals. There is hardly a letter of hers that fails to mention
bird or beast that she was befriending or that was giving
her pleasure; her family thought her like Emily Bronte. 1 But the
crash made her the companion, first, of the gypsy life of both
her patents and later of her widowed mother in a cramped remote
cottage filled with relics of lost grandeur. As a result, Henry-
declared, she never even had an offer. He did his best for her,
by taking her out for a summer and winter in India, but she was
already 39 and, as he said, the change came too late to do her
any good; no suitor came forward. It is small wonder that in
middle life she became uncertain of temper. But her love of birds
persisted, and in a cottage which she made into an aviary, she
reached at last an old age which was self-contained and contented.
Sadly, she was the one member of his family to whom at times
Henry was a little hard; he was angered by her tempers and for
a time ceased writing to her. But he never ceased to help her, or
to think of her needs.

Tne third child, Maggie, was the only one who did not reach
o d age, being killed at 59 in a carriage accident. She was also the
only one whose writing took a romantic turn, in verse and stories.
Almost a real published authoress, she became in family parlance
"the illustrious Miggs.” After a lengthy courtship which kept the
family agog for years she married at 30 a minister— Stephen
Bell whom she had got to know through her mother’s crony,
Mrs. Ilowison, and she lived twenty years widi him at the small
fishing town of Eyemouth on the Berwickshire coast. Stephen
himself was there for nearly forty years; he achieved a remarkable
double first of local fame, by being burnt in effigy in the streets
cai y in his ministry, and by having a tablet in the church erected to
his memory more than twenty years after his death. The burning
in effigy arose from his stand for church rights to tithe from the
fishermen; he was a small man, bold as a lion. The church tablet
shows that he fought his unpopularity down both by years of
service and by his sacrifice at their end. There was a great storm
at Eyemouth in the autumn of 1881 which cost many boats and

rh ^enue s feeling for animals was in truth me re like Charlotte Bronte’s affection
r;r r%f m , iy s & aSslon ’A’ P™ rayed by Mrs. Gaskell at .he cod of Chapter XII of her
Phen ’• • harlotte Bron,e - The family comparison to Emil , was provoked no doubt by

Ml UlST/f

Lidia Called Them

id still in local tradition is known as “The Disas
ien Bell wore himself to death in helping those who suffered
by it. Maggie, to her grief, had no children. But this made it
possible for her as a widow to return to Culross and become
the mainstay of her mother’s house there. Whiie she lived at
Eyemouth as the minister’s helpmeet, the Manse there became
a fixed point of family gathering. To her two younger brothers
in India, Miggs became the grandmother to whom they looked
in due course to provide them with wives. She remained always
closest of all his kin to Henry, and came into the lives of his
children.

The first of these younger brothers—Alexander, always shor¬
tened to Allie—went to India at the same time as Henry, though
separately, as an Army doctor. Sent by the overland route across
Egypt, Allie started for India a month later than Henry and
arrived a month before. With the 78th Seaforth Highlanders, one
of the famous regiments of the Mutiny War, he saw the fighting
through, went home for two years and came out for a second
spell in India. Thereafter Allie took part in Lord Napier of
Magdala’s Abyssinian Campaign of 1868 and returned to marry
at the age of 38 one of his cousins, of the rich branch of the
house of B from Dunfermline. This made it possible for him,
after twenty years of service, to retire in the early forties into
domesticity varied by shooting and fishing. Whether through his
military service or the easy conditions of his marriage, he became
in some ways the most conventional of the five children of
Inzievar. He was the only one who ever indulged in field sports;
he r lone of all his family hardly ever dated the letters he wrote
or kept those that he received; books took a second place with
him to the country life. “Like you,” he wrote to Henry, “I could
not do without books if I was always town bound, but let me
loose among the birds, beasts and plants and books take a
secondary place at least till night creeps in.” But he shared the
charm which was so strong in Henry and he shared the family
fondness for trenchant phrases.

“I am weary,” he wrote home in 1865, “of enumerating the natural
features of Morar having written six accounts of its geography,
topography and diseases for the annual returns of the Batteries. A
dump of trees in the midst of a howling desert with barren hills all

Jemima and Her Brood

/gives the best idea of a hole soon to become one of the
stations in India.”

Ihere has to be mentioned last but not least, as an essential
member of this family group, Jemima’s elder sister Jane. Not
marrying herself, Jane became the beloved standby aunt of
Jemima’s children, living with them as often as not, having a
home for them always.

Henry, echoing his sister Maggie and exercising his fondness
for teasing thoughts, wrote once to his wife that in taking Jemima
rather than Jane, his father had married die wrong sister. This
was a little hard on Jemima who was justified by her children
if ever a woman was, and who might have retorted that perhaps
she had married the wrong man. Apart from this and the fact
that Jane was nearly ten years older than Henry of Inzievar, in
practice by marrying Jemima he acquired Jane also.

When Jemima was incapacitated by the birth of a daughter,
Henry felt it a grievance that Jane simultaneously went off to
nurse an uncle who was sick to death. He described himself as

left at Inzievar as “sole housekeeper discharging the duty
miserably.” J

When schoolboy Allie cut his finger, Jemima asked Jane to
come and dress it and promised to go easy widi his studies
meanwhile.

I will'torment him no more with his Latin until he is better. Hen
is far up above in his class; he will perhaps be better next year if
spared, but he will not give his mind to the verb.

Aunt Jane, having been educated in England and having lived
there a good deal, was regarded by this Scottish family as an
3Ut a ^- maUers of taste and society. Omne ignotum pro

magnijico. q Aunt Jane Jemima appealed when in distressed
agitation about fitting out her daughter Maggie for marriage,
without having any money for blankets.

J have written Henry [to send money from India] and urged him
with the motto “Fly let us a’ to the wedding” but much I fear the
money can’t reach us in time. You have the better head than I have
tor such matters—pray exert it on this occasion and let us devise
what is to be done. My own heart is disgusted with bridal presents
since the winds swept through mine.

India Called Them

unt Jane the children appealed in distress. One o
of the surviving letters—a schoolgirl effusion by Phemie
written in the shadow of bankruptcy—carried a postscript
initialled by the whole tribe.

P.S. We would like if you would come over. D. B., E. S. B.,

M. T. B., A. B., H. B.

By his prudent marriage, Henry die elder’s children enjoyed
both the bracing austerities and Latin of Jemima and the amiable
graces and cossetting of Jane; they were her Bairns as well
as Jemima’s. Success as a maiden aunt comes easier than success
as a modier. But Jane worked for her success and deserved it.

Aunt Jane, by a family arrangement, when the rest moved back
to Edinburgh, became occupant of Inzievar and made it, while
Inzievar lasted, a continuing holiday home. When the family
became scattered over the world,” wrote David, the only place
of never failing rendezvous and welcome was our aunt s house,
first at Inzievar, dien at Carnock in the adjoining parish, and last
of all at St. Mungo’s Culross.” Wherever she went she took with
her an irremovable retainer, Jenny Wilson, and a brother who
at one time had been off his head and under restraint. Released,
he became the harmless oddity of Jane’s home, known to all as
“Nunky,” with Henry the elder—of all people most inappro¬
priate—appointed as curator bonis to look after Nunky’s affairs
after having made a mess of his own.

it was to Jane’s last house at St. Mungo’s, Culross, that Henry
the elder and Jemima returned in 1862 after their wanderings in
London and their sojourn in Helensburgh. There Henry and
Jane and “Nunky,” all three died in the following year; there
Jemima lived for another twenty years and more.

Aunt Jane was so much one of Henry the elder’s family that
her fortune, no doubt by her free will, became involved in its
misfortunes. Her £8,000 as well as Jemima’s, or a large part of
it, went with the wind. In her last years she was helped out by
an annuity from a friend and she died leaving few material
oossessions. What she left in the hearts of those on whom she
spent herself was put by Allie to his brother Henry.

i5/4/<$3

Aunt has made a happy end of her kind and unselfish life. May all
her bairns meet her again. I have lost a love I never can expect again.

3 *

Jemima and Her Brood

close family group made Henry’s life for twenty ye 3
wrote in his Memoir of Maggie: “Both our parents "were"
evotedly attached to their children, and the whole tenor of our
life was of the most domestic character.” The noble house of B
with its five children, its maiden aunt, and its books and walks
was a self-contained world, as the smaller families of to-day with
aunts becoming as rare as comets can hardly be. From this
upbringing flowed Henry’s qualities: bookishness, thoughtfulness
for others, need to exercise affection, self-criticism, shyness with
strangers, utter unreserve when he was sure. His shyness stayed
with him through life, marked physically by an engaging blinking
of his eyes, marked mentally by an abiding sense of uncoudiness,
shown sometimes as with other shy creatures by brusqueness of
manner to cover the tenderness of his heart. Self-criticism he
drew in full from father and mother alike. His father’s change¬
ability came down to him only in a fondness for throwing out
unpractical ideas as to places in which to live or expeditions
that he or others might make or books that he might write.
His mother’s fretfulness came down to him only as a fond¬
ness for teasing thoughts. Her love of gossip and of harmless
malice in comment on her kind came down in full; Henry always
said of himself that he looked habitually at “die other side of the
stuff.” One quality—of making die best of his circumstances and
never crying over spilt milk—Henry himself used to attribute
to his reading of Foster’s Essay on Decision of Character , T but
one may suspect diat it had deeper roots in temperament, in good
health, in the fact that books were to him a never-failing resource.
The same quality was shown by his brother David. It was not
in the nature of these two, any more than it was in the nature
of Elizabeth Bennet, to increase their vexations by dwelling on
them. 2

1 Tills was one of several Essays in a Series of Letters to a Friend\ which between 1840
and 1855 ran to 27 editions. Of the author it was said that “As a Baptist Minister he was
a pathetic failure in five brief pastorates, but as a writer he exercised an influence without
parallel in Nonconformist r.nnals”; the Essay on Decision of Character was described
as having put *ron into the blood of countless readers. Henry Beveridge came to treat
this work as a moral pill of proved efficacy; liis taking it up to read became to his family
a sign that he felt his temper to be out of order.

2 Pride and Prejudice , ch. xl.

misTfy

Write succinctly and in Latin biographical notices of the
following personages , stating the date and place of birth
of each: Theramenes , Polybius , Poseidonius, Arcesi-
laus y Parmenides , Eratosthenes .

Question set to Candidates for the Indian Civil
Service in 1858.

. . . There are of course not many dancing ladies here but
that only makes the task of those males who don't dance
the easier.

Henry from Dacca to his brother David,

December 1866.

I cannot say that want of religion has seriously saddened
me. . . . Virtue and morality are independent of revealed
religion.

Henry in Memorandum on his Religious Opinions
written by him for his children.

There is nothing really venerable except what is true.

Henry from Noakhali to his sister Phemie in
Culross, February 22, 1867.

The longer you stay in the country the more you will feel
that at heart the natives fear and dislike us and that they
look with suspicion on all our schemes even when they are
really for their benefit. . . . Not all the bells in all our
churches will ring out the darkness of the land nor ring in
the common love of good. The bells that will do that have
yet to be cast and the voices of their chimes will not be
heard by us.

Henry to Annette Akroyd, March 13, 1873.

MINiSr^

Chapter III

TEN LONELY YEARS

L A solitude effraye line ame de vingt ans. Loneliness is
frightening to the soul at 20 years of age. So in Moliere’s
Le Misanthrope Celimene answers Alceste.

When Henry, at 20 years of age, stepped on board the sailing
ship Alfred at Gravesend he was facing an affrighting change of
life, from intimacy to loneliness. He had lived till that moment
as one of a close family group all of whom saw one another nearly
every day, hardly any of whom saw a stranger except on rare
occasions. A visitor was a curiosity in the noble house of B.
Henry now left his home to go by himself on a four months’
journey to the other side of the world, and take up a responsible
new job about which he had everything to learn. He had also to
learn suddenly how to live with strangers.

The country to which he was going was not one to give
comfort to his parents. In the months just preceding his departure,
the columns of the daily papers were full of the Sepoy Mutiny
and its horrors. Henry was going to Bengal; just before he
departed, his parents might have learned from The Times that
in die Bengal Presidency mutiny and murder were still rampant.

Except for his next elder brother, Allie, he did not see any one
of his family for more than ten years. Some of them—his father
and his Aunt Jane—he never saw again. One of them—the
nearest to him in some ways, his favourite sister, Maggie—he saw
again only after she had changed her state by marrying. The
change for Henry at 20 was complete and final, to a life utterly
different from anything for which he had been prepared. And he
and his type were different from anything that India had known.

The days when Englishmen went to India to shake the pagoda |
tree and returned as wealthy nabobs had passed long before. |
But the days of the appointment of directors’ nominees bad only
just ended. Henry’s covenant of service was not with the Govern¬
ment of India, for that did not exist in 1857, but with the East
India Company. Nearly all his seniors in the service—the men

India Called Them

(fere to determine his fate—were men reared in a dif&
htion from his own, owing their positions to personal selec¬
tion. Henry was the product of Mr. Gladstone’s new-fangled
device for breaking down patronage in the public service at home
and abroad—the device of written competitive examination in
academic subjects, conducted by an impartial body of Civil
Service Commissioners.

For the -work that he was meant to do the device was not at
first blush appropriate; the art of the written examination was in
its infancy, and some of the first papers set were singularly bad.
Here are two questions, on the Language, Literature and History
of Greece, set by a Reverend Doctor Donaldson, whose real
name must have been Dr. Casaubon, the husband of George
Eliot’s Dorothea Brooke, or Dr. Middleton, the father of
Meredith’s Clara.

I. An eminent Greek Author, not a native of Athens, arrived
there for the first time in B.c. 367; state the circumstances of his
life before and after this time, and mention the subjects of his
principal works.

II. Write succinctly and in Latin biographical notices of the
following personages, stating the date and place of birth of each:
Theramenes, Polybius, Poseidonius, Arcesilaus, Parmenides,
Eratosthenes. Give in English the dates and circumstances of the
following events: the first and second battles of Mantinea; the
peace of Antalcidas; the defeat of the Athenians in Egypt; the
deaths of Cleon and Brasidas. 1

Such questions were designed to discover not what the candi¬
date could do but what he did not know. If a candidate happened
to remember about Aristotle one of the least important facts
about him—namely, the year in which he reached Athens—he
might score 100 per cent on the first question; otherwise his
score would be zero. If a candidate had spent his time learning
about Greeks of no real importance and ignoring those who
made Greek history, he might have written six Latin biographies
about them and done very well on the second question.

1 The*: particular questions v/ere set in 1858, not in 1857. The paper 9 for 1857
are not given in the Civil Service Commission Report from which the questions
are taken, hut the examination was of the same type.

MINISr^

Ten Lonely Years

tu'nately for him, Henry had a first-class memory;
arks in Greek, though he did relatively much better’ in
Modem Languages, in Natural Science and in Moral Science.
He was no specialist. With characteristic self-depreciation he
accepted a casual remark once made of him by his father that
Henny-penny was bird-witted.

Fortunately for India, possession of a good memory did not
exclude more important qualities. Whatever could be said of the
memory tests of the early examinations, as means of selecting
for home service clerks in the Circumlocution Office of Dickens
or the Internal Navigation of Trollope, Henry’s seniors in
Bengal might reasonably doubt whether his success in passing
them was any qualification for dealing with men and for the out¬
door life of the Indian backwoods. Their own selection had been
made on very different grounds, and the fact that the new plan
was designed to correct errors arising under the old plan, only
sharpened their prejudice against the new men, interlopers in the
sacred college of sons and nephews. 1 The “competition wallahs”
had to make their way and prove their merits to severely critical
superiors. That they did so triumphantly is now well known.
They went to India no longer to seek fortunes, but in a spirit
of adventure and service. They went to India chosen for what
was in themselves, not for their parents or uncles.

Of Henry’s long journey out four tilings only are known. The
journey lasted four months,from the end of September 1857 to the
end of January 1858. He took, among other things, for reading
on the voyage three quarto volumes of Hallam’s Middle Ages
and Gibbon’s History ofthe Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
He saw Tristan d’Acunha and ever after felt a proprietary interest
in that island. He remembered, as the greatest hardship of the
journey, that he never had anything but salt water in which
to wash.

When he reached India, he found that his brother, Allie, had
already arrived there. The two brothers met from time to ur.ie
and had some adventures together, some of which came back
to Henry’s mind in the last days of his life, long after Allie’s
death. But they were pursuing differen careers and their meetings

1 This is the phrase used for the East India Company’s Covenanted Service by
Sir William Hunter, five years Henry’s junior, who outstripped him altogether n< the
race {The India of the Queen y p. 28).

MINISr^

India Called Them

were rare. Their main co-operation was in the final
ort of the family at home.

Of Henry’s daily life and occupation in his first ten years
very little is known. He spent most of the first year in Calcutta,
in the College which in those days gave new recruits' their first

vocational training on the spot—in the languages they would use,
in the law they would apply, in the practical arts of riding and
shooting that they would need. Henry officially went through
College with flying colours, but according to his own account
he failed to pass in Hindustani.

Henry’s first appointment after his period of training was to
Mymensing, east of the Brahmaputra, but he did not stay there
or indeed anywhere else for any length of time in those ten years.
He was constantly on the move: he was sent to Nadia, where he
acquired considerable dislike of indigo-growers; to Sylhet, which
later became part of Assam; to Manipur, to which in his own
words he was deported from Sylhet; to the native State of Cooch
Behar; to Bhutan, where as the sender of a telegram about a
disaster in the spring of 1865, he got his name into the English
papers; to Dacca in 1866, and finally in 1867 to Noakhali, in the
tidal delta of the great rivers at the south-eastern corner of Bengal.

Of course Henry had some friends from the beginning in
India—two in particular from Queen’s College, Belfast, who
went out with him in the same year. And of course he made new
friends, for he was an engaging youth, tall and good-looking,
with fair hair and blue eyes; he had a natural charm to overcome
the seriousness of his upbringing and his social inheritance.

One friend who influenced him greatly he made through being
sent to Orissa to complete his education in Hindustani. This was
Wilfred Heeley, two years his senior, one of the first batch of all
among tiie competition wallahs.

Another friend for life he made in a characteristic way. He was
standing in a crowd one morning, when he was a newcomer,
looking at a passing show. There was a very small unknown
Indian boy standing near him struggling hopelessly to get a view.
Henry hoisted him on to his shoulder, where he watched it all
above the heads of the other spectators. This was the beginning
of a life-long friendship. The little boy turned out to be Krishna
Go. inda Gupta, who became in due course the first Indian

Ten Lonely Years

■§L

of the Legislative Council, and one of the first Incj
Ceive a knighthood. There was no story which later Sir
Krishna liked so much to tell as this one, or which Henry so
persistently tried to keep untold . 1

But, in spite of friends, these early years of Henry in India
were vagrant years and years of solitude. Like Shelley’s Alastor,
with his spirit inflamed by familiarity with things excellent and
majestic in literature and philosophy, he was a youdi sent out
into a wilderness. And, as to Alastor, so to Henry and his kind,
the problem of female companionship must have presented itself
acutely. For Henry’s and Allie’s first years in India fell into a
transition time, between the early stage when few European
women came to India and unions with women of the country
were common, and the later stage of Anglo-Indian Society with
its growing racial separation.

The brothers were together for a time in the native State of
Cooch Behar, a place in which Henry would have liked to stay,
for he found plenty to do in putting things right. Here Allie took
the chance as elder brother of giving Henry much good advice,
including the recommendation that Henry should get himself a
wife. But Henry was not apparently impressed, and Allie gave up
the attempt and handed both Henry and himself over to the
wisdom of their “grandmother at Eyemouth.”

For Henry the problem of society was intensified by special
factors. One factor was his shyness; years after he quoted with
sympathy Archbishop Whately’s saying that “the pangs of
shyness are such that if there was no other world than this, the
kindest thing to do to a very shy young man would be to put
a bullet through his head.” Another factor was his outspoken
sympathy with Indian aspirations and his uneasiness about
British rule. Many years after he told his younger daughter how
aloof this sometimes made him feel in Anglo-Indian Society;
English ladies appeared to him often to be drawing their skirts
away from him as he passed. No doubt some of them did so. The
attitude of English society in India of the eighteen-sixties, as it
was described by one of Henry’s younger contemporaries, was
one of patronage and superiority.

1 The most probable setting for this story is Mymensing, Henry’s first station (when
he was 22) and young Gupta’s first school (when he was 8).

India Called Them

old Haileybury tone still pervaded the Civil Service ai
ew class of competitioners to which I belonged and had
their spurs to win were easily attracted into the prevailing current.
Nor was there any deterrent from the Indian side; nothing could
exceed the obsequious and cringing demeanour of the old class
of Indians, especially those about the Law Courts, with whom
we were mostly brought into immediate contact. It was in fact a
demoralising environment into which we were thrown, and I am
not ashamed to say that I succumbed to it. 1

This was written by Henry Cotton, who reached India nearly
ten years after Henry Beveridge and who in later years showed
the same Indian sympathies. Henry Beveridge swam against the
prevailing current all his life.

Yet a third factor was Henry’s conscious ignorance of die
lesser social arts. He had never been taught to dance. From Dacca
he wrote to his brother David:

9/12/66.

We have had a very gay time in Dacca ov/ing to the races coming
off in it. Some of the races are very pretty affairs and it is curious to
see how the natives flock to look at them. Of course one reason of
this is that one of the largest zemindars here is a great man for racing
and is very popular with his countrymen.

Then we have had cricket and dinner parties and no less than two
balls. The first was given by the Bachelors of Dacca and the 2nd by
the aforesaid Mussulman Zemindar. . . . There are of course not
many dancing ladies here but that only makes the task of those males
who don’t dance the easier.

I shall be leaving tliis station shortly but I don’t know as yet where
I am going.

The last sentence is typical of the unsettled life of those years.
Henry w'as too modest and too sensible and too much interested
in his work to be acutely unhappy. But he lacked the natural
basis of happiness. And he did not, like his brother Allie, have
the companionship of a mess. He solaced himself in these early
years, as ho did when he was lonely again at the end of his Indian
service, by playing the concertina. This was the only musical
instrument to which he aspired. It was one which he never
mastered.

Though the details of Henry’s early life in India are lost, it is

* Indian . u! Home Memories, by Sir Henry Cotton, K.C.S.I., p. 6<S.

Ten Lonely Years

iat tliree important things happened to him: he bej__
[is brother Allie the main financial support of his family at
He ranked himself firmly with Indian aspirations for self-
government. He broke with the religion in which he had been
brought up.

The two younger sons of the noble house of B. were no sooner
established in India than they began sending money home. As
Jemima would have put it, the family was at this stage even more
than usually low. While Henry was still at sea on his way out,
money belonging to him, presumably an advance of salary, had
to be used to pay his father’s fare from Fife to London. The first
sums from India reached his parents in the middle of 1858, when
Henry the elder, in London lodgings with his wife Jemima and
his daughter Phemie, was finishing his History of India , against
time and in failing health. They were as welcome as the first rains
in Bengal.

Jemima wrote characteristic blessings to her bairn: “Like all
beggars I hope that you will live till I pay you.” She bought a
silk bonnet for 30s. in Regent Street. She paid her debts and
c ec ared her intention of once more curling her hair. Recording
t iese rejoicings at home, Phemie added for her brothers in India
a picture that must have pleased them:

Papa and Mrs. B. are playing a game of chess. ... I haven’t seen
them at that for many a long day.”

While Henry the elder lived, he continued to make some
income, and Allie and Henry were only called on for extras, such
out their sister Maggie for her marriage. But with their
tether s death in 1863 a new chapter opened. Henry arranged to
send through his Uncle Robert regular remittances to his widowed
mother of £25 or £30 a month. He and Allie continued remit¬
tances, so long as Jemima lived.

In icturn, Jemima kept them informed about the various
ranches or the house ‘of B, Each of her three brothers-in-law—
avid of Dumfries, Robert and Erskine— married twice and had
two families; Jemima had much to say about them.

Your cousins at the Priory are champing the bit at their Stepper
ote prnotlier] with right good will. Surely that expulsive power of a
ne w affection is of a bewildering potency, for both Erskine and Robert

MIN/Sr^

India Called Them

_ solutely dead to early feelings
all before them in both families. .

isL

the present Prima
. If I r/as a despot I would
marriages where there was a

prohibit my subjects from second
family. . . .

I have got an invitation to Cousin A’s marriage with one Miss B.
As I have never met her I must forbear all speculation anent the girl.
She goes to the same sectarian church as he does; now-a-days these
are the means of match-making where all stand on the same platform.
Granny Hunt used to say it was fully a better mode of introduction
than a ballroom. It may be but I doubt if it be equally propitious for
gaining knowledge of each others dispositions. . . .

Amelia Beveridge's intended is an Irish curate. His father is a
gaoler at Carrickfergus. But if the youth has wisdom and worth
what need Uncle Erskine grumble at that for; however he says that
tlie poor curate is not a gentleman and cannot keep a wife.

Since Uncle Erskine, though he had by his abilities become
wealthy, was himself the son of a baker in Dunfermline, his
objection to the son of a gaoler seemed hardly well-founded.
Luckily Amelia was a young woman of determination, duly
married her curate, and lived very happily with him.

In telling Henry about the marriages of kinsmen at home, his
brothers and sisters did not fail to give him good advice for
himself. “It is hardly necessary/* hoped David, “to warn you
against the allurements of the accomplished Mrs. Hughes.’*
“Don’t be taken up with the soft blandishments of any of them
white roses in Calcutta,” warned Phemie; “remember the brighter
ones growing up for you at home and take not to yourself a wife
of the daughters of a strange land.”

It was probably part of Jemima’s prudence that stye let these
admonitions come to Henry from his own generation rather'than
from herself. She was content to deal with minor dangers. “Oh
caution him against dinner parties,” she wrote to Allie, “for they
are a share to health.” “I am desired by your Father to warn you
not to sacritice health to preferment and I add for myself: remem¬
ber of buying books there is no end.” With this letter Jemima
sent to her Benjamin one of her own favourite books, her own
personal copy of Thomas a Kempis.

The second and most important development for Henry in
these early years was that he came to feel that British rule of India

MINISr^

Ten Lonely Years

i/of place, and that its main objective should be to prfe
own extinction. In principle this was the view of many
erals—Macaulay among others—even from the day when
British India became formally part of the British Empire. It was
a view which Henry inherited from his father:

Should the day ever come that India, in consequence of the
development of her resources by British capital, and the enlighten¬
ment of her people by British philanthropy, shall again take rank
among nations as an independent State, then it will be not too
much to say that the extinction of our Indian Empire by such
peaceful means sheds more lustre on the British name than all
the other events recorded in its history.

With this passage from the conclusion of his father’s last
wor k the Comprehensive History of India, published in 1862—•
Henry thirteen years later fortified himself in his own first work—
the District of Bakarganj —in mooting the gradual abandonment
of India. This passage Henry’s son William cited in a letter to
The Times in April 1946, on the morrow of the momentous
announcement made by thePrime Minister of die day announcing
tlie final decision to establish a constitution for independent India.
There have always in Britain been forces consciously directed to
that aim.

Tn principle Henry did not go beyond many others of liis
time. His special characteristic was that he believed in putting
principles into practice. If urging any course in which he believed
appeared likely to bring him into trouble with authority, he felt
it all the more necessary to urge it. In later life he was fond of
quoting as applying to himself did remark of the miller whose wife
fell into die river and was drowned: “Seek her upstreams.”
Henry was contrary by nature, if there was anything t6 be lost
by contrariness. He spent his life working upstream in India.

His belief that Britain should in due course abandon India did
not mean that he was blind either to the achievements of British
rule or to dangers of an immediate withdrawal. He made hosts of
Indian friends and kept them throughout on terms of affection
and mutual respect, and he acquired a deep knowledge of the
history, languages, and culture of his adopted land. But he would
have been the first to say that the Bengali character did not show

India Called Them

est in the law courts and police courts where he saw^
t, listening day by day to so many lying witnesses and such
interminable pleaders; he wrote once of looking forward to a
time when the Bengali Babu would not always be sitting “like
a nightmare on our souls/ 5

Undoubtedly Henry felt that he would have been happier in
India if he had not been there as an alien ruler: if he had gone
there as a scholar or teacher or even as a missionary. Not that he
could have gone as a missionary. The agnosticism which was
another fruit of his ten lonely years in India forbade that. The
first article which he published, in the Theological Review of
October 1869, on “Christianity in India, 55 was an outspoken
criticism of projects for sending out more preaching missionaries.
Yet at the same time Henry paid tribute to the virtues of the
missionaries and their work:

We firmly believe that missionaries are mistaken when they
imagine that they will ever convert the Hindoos, but none the
less do we believe them to be honest and god-fearing men, who
have indirectly done a great deal of good in India. . . . Nearly
all of them are excellent linguists. . . . Above all, the mission¬
aries are the only Europeans who come to India for other purposes
than to make a fortune or to earn a livelihood.

Discussion of missionaries leads naturally to the third thing
which happened to Henry in those years, namely, his change of
attitude to religion. Henry was born and bred a Presbyterian.
His father, though becoming in some ways of doubtful orthodoxy
and ceasing to preach, never left the church. His mother, as Henry
once said of her, never abandoned the blessed hope of eternal
damnation for unbelievers. And Henry himself, though looking
back without pleasure to the dreary Sundays and wearisome
services f his childhood, remained orthodox when he arrived in
India; he was shocked when his new friend, Wilfred Heeley,
laughed at the story of the apple in the Garden of Eden. But in
a few years he went over completely. He became an agnostic,
not denying religion, but denying his own capacity to know
whether there was a God or a future life. And he took his
agnosticism seriously, declined to do or say anything that would
rank him as a Christian, declined to go to church to be married,

Ten Lonely Years

cl in due course to have his children brought up as Cb\
members of any church. They were to choose for
when they should be old enough to do so. Characteristically
he wrote out for the benefit of these children a memorandum
telling them what he thought and how he had come to think it.

I cannot say that the want of a religion has seriously saddened
me. I should like to believe in a future state where one could have
another chance so to speak and especially w r here one could makeup
for the neglects and cruelties that one has committed in this world
but at the same time I see that the idea of a future life brings with
it many awkwardnesses. . . .

Virtue and morality are independent of revealed religion at
least of such revelations as we have hitherto had. The great
thing is to be just and fear not, to use John Bright’s favourite
phrase. A love of truth in thought word and deed is looked upon
by your mother and myself as die main quality to be desired.
Such a quality is in itself a religion. The ancient Stoics are a class
we have a high veneration for. I hope that you will read Marcus
Aurelius’ meditations some day and some w r ords on the Stoics
in Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws.

If morality means respect for the claims of others than oneself,
Henry undoubtedly showed in his own life that morality does not
depend on religion. His reason for desiring a future life, not so
as to have a better time for himself, but so as to make good his
own neglects and crueldes, rings true and his whole life showed
it to be true. In the memorandum Henry attributed his loss of
belief largely to Wilfred Heeley and to his reading. In an article
written nearer to the event he gave a different reason—the
spectacle in India “of so many millions of men living widiout
the knowledge of Christianity and apparently not much the
worse for want of it.”

We found them eating and drinking and yet not gluttonous or
wine-bibbing, marrying and giving in marriage, rearing their children,
affectionate one towards another, cultivating the soil, practising their
trades, observant of the laws, charitable to the poor etc., and yet
entirely without the possession of w r hat we had been told was the
one thing needful. Naturally, w'e think, we came to the conclusion
diat Christianity was less important than we had been told it was,
and that it was possible to stand up and live without it . 1

* Calcutta Review, April, 1876 in a review of Pilgrim Memories.

India Called Them

iSL

cisive influence in Henry’s break with Christianit
pathetic interest in the life of India.

Agnosticism did not mean that Henry ceased to be interested
in religion, still less that he gave up reading sermons or the
Bible. A letter which at 30 he wrote to his sister Phemie from
Noakhali may fitly end this chapter, as it came near the end of
his ten lonely years in India:

Daklin Shabagpur,

Noakhali,

22nd February, 1867.

My Dear Phemie,

I am still cruising among the islands in the estuary of the Meghna
and passing my time in reading and writing. Among other readings I
have been studying the Pentateuch and have got through the first
three books. I must candidly confess that I incline to be an adherent
of Bishop Colenso and that I cannot see that inspiration was required
for all those minute details about the tabernacle and the duties of the
Levites &c. I think too that the books gain in interest by being con¬
sidered as merely very old historical records of the Jewish race.

Can anything be finer than the character of Moses as therein shown
to us r Here was a man brought up in the lap of luxury and who might
if he had chosen have trodden the primrose path of dalliance and yet
he gave it all up and cast in his lot with a despised body of slaves
merely because he felt it his duty to do so. He is perhaps the earliest
hero in the World’s history and he is one of the greatest. I confess
that in old days when we learned our Shorter Catechism and I stuck
at the answer to the question about effectual calling (I am afraid I
don’t know the answer very well yet) I used to think it hard that
Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land after he had so
Jong borne the burden and heat of the day. But I daresay it mattered
little. He was a man who cared little for his own happiness and the
thought that he had secured the Promised Land for his countrymen
was enough for him.

Why does not the Government or die Kirk of Scotland or some¬
body else make a new translation of the Bible? It is all very well to
say that the present translation is a very good one. No doubt it is for
the time at which it was made and it has been hallowed by many
assoc iaiions. But still after all there is nothing that is really venerable
except what is true and if the authorised translation is, as it un-
doubtcdly i incorrect in some places and unintelligible in others it
ought to be revised.

Ten Lonely Years

' ntiblish new editions every day of Chaucer, Shakespear^

^pite the abuse poured upon commentators we feel the b£
leir labours when we come to a passage which we cannot under¬
stand. Why shouldn’t we in the same way publish new editions of
the Bible? I am sure that there are many passages in the Old Testament
especially which are simply unintelligible in the present translation
and which mar the effect of the finest chapters. Indeed I do not suppose
that anyone ever read the Psalms or the Proverbs or the Prophets
without a latent fear that he would stumble upon some passage to
which he could not attach any meaning.

In old times and perhaps even yet Scotch folk had a great preference
for the Old Testament and it was much more in their mouths than
the New. I suppose the precision of its commands had an attraction
for the hard-headed, logical Scotch mind which never admires any¬
thing that it cannot see round as it were. Anything clear and definite
is only another word for limited.

This devotion to the Old Testament did harm enough in old days.
For example the saying “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”
caused many murders and Lily Adie’s among the rest. I think it does
harm still but I am afraid Mama will think that I have been treading
too long on delicate ground and so I will now leave the subject. I
will only remark though that if religion is to consist of the same set
of views for all ages and if future generations are to have all their
beliefs cut and dry for them before they enter into the world then I
do not see what merit they have in embracing the true faith. A
celebrated German (Lessing) said that if Heaven were to offer him
two gifts one The Truth and the other The Search after Truth, he
would choose the latter. Don’t you think he was right?

Among these islands I have seen once more the phaenomenon of
the tides to which I have long been a stranger. Seeing the “saut-water”
and its ebb and flow reminds one of the old days at Becky Hog*s and
the Island. But what a wee bit bumie your Forth is to our great rivers
and the Carse, too, what a little spit it is compared to the alius ial
formations here.

From Noakhali in February 1868 Henry went home to see once
more the wee bit burnie of the Forth. He took with him the first,
and as it proved the last, official recognition of his work in
India—a certificate signed by the Governor, General Sir John
Lawrence, conferring upon him a Degree of Honour for “eminent
proficiency in the Bengallee language/'

viam 4°

Poor bairn , I wish she was with her mother.

Henry to Jemima about his betrothed,

December 1869.

I am going to be good for once in my life and leave every -
thing to Janie. Poor bairn I don t see why she should not
have the delight ofordering people about for once in her life.
I should like her to take a stock of pleasant impressions
(sunny memories of foreign lands as Mrs. Stowe called
them ) of places with her to India so that she might have
something to fill her mind with during the somewhat
solitary hours when her husband is in Cutcherry _

Henry to Jemima about his proposed wedding trip,

May 6, 1871.

“I felt like a murderer

Henry on January 28, 1873.

MIN IST/f

JEANIE

H ENRY returned to Britain in the spring of 1868, after
ten years of absence. During that absence his father and
his Aunt Jane had died; his favourite sister, Maggie, had
become the minister’s wife at Eyemoudi; his mother, Jemima,
had been settled with his eldest sister, Phemie, in Aunt Jane’s
house; his eldest brother, David, was dividing his time between
seeking employment or haunting libraries in London and keeping
Jemima company in Scotland; he and his brother Allie, at this
time in Abyssinia, had become the main pillars of the family
finance.

Henry returned with two years’ furlough ahead of him and
plunged back into family life. He took Jemima and David and
Phemie on an expedition to France and Switzerland and bought
an alpenstock for Jemima at the mouth of the valley down
which the “young Frau” looks. He took Maggie and her husband,
Stephen Bell, to see the sights of London and the Derby—not
from the Grand Stand. He described this to Jemima.

27/s/ 6 9-

We took some Melton Mowbray pies out with us and lunched on
the Downs. There was an immense gathering and the most extra¬
ordinary effect wc witnessed was the sudden whitening of the Grand
Stand when the crowd in it turned all their faces towards us to see
the horses coming up to the winning post. Before that and after the
horses had passed the appearance of the stand was quite black. This
sudden change from black to white has been poetically compared
by the reporter for the Daily Telegraph to a forest of aspens blown
upon by the wind and showing only the underside of their leaves.
To my prosaic mind it was more like a great heap of turnips covered
by a black sheet which was suddenly withdrawn.

He re-established connections with Professor Geddes and other
old friends in tire University of Aberdeen; he argued with
jemima and Maggie and Stephen Bell about religion, and he
wrote his first article—on “Christianity in India’—in the
Theological Review of October 1869.

MiN/sr^

India Called Them

time, as his furlough ran out, he must have be<
inscious each day that it would not be good for himTo
return to India alone. He must find a wife. There is a family
tradition that at first, following advice given to him by Phernie,
he fixed his eye on one of “the fair cousin-hood of Dunfermline,”
as his brother Allie did with success a few years later. In Henry’s
case this did not lead to a match; he was always less conventional
than Allie; his religious and his political views alike may have
seemed dangerous to the rich branch of the house of B.

Then, almost at the end of his furlough, Henry found what
he wanted, still through a family connection. Jemima’s life-long
friend, her old crony at Greenhill Bank, was Mrs. Howison,
the Jane Watkins of the expedition to New Lanark. She had been
the link which had brought Henry’s sister, Maggie, and Stephen
Bell together. She now did a similar service to Henry. A year or
two older than Jemima, she had married just before her, and
had a daughter, Eliza Christian, who was of practically the same
age as Jemima’s David. Eliza and David were great friends
throughout life; it is an obvious guess that, but for the family
crash, they would have made a match, and that David, through
the crash, lost not only his own inheritance but also an heiress;
there was plenty of money in the Howison family. The crash
left David stranded. Eliza fell to another—William Goldie — and
went off with him to Australia, where he became Town Clerk of
St. Kilda’s, near Melbourne; there, at the end of 1853, Eliza’s first
child was born and named for her grandmother—Jane Howison
Goldie. But William Goldie did not settle in Australia. At about
the same time that Henry went to India, William Goldie came
back from Australia, qualified in i860 as a surgeon, and set up in
practice in Edinburgh. By the time of Henry’s first furlough,
William Goldie, with his wife and a string of daughters, was
established as a fashionable doctor at No. 1, Greenhill Bank, with
his mother-in-law, Mrs. Howison, now a widow, established at
No. 2 next door. 1

When during his first year in India, Phernie had admonished
young Henry not to be taken up with the soft blandishments of
any of them white roses in Calcutta, but to remember the brighter

1 These houses, built about i86r, are still star: and 30, Morningside Road.

William O oldie, by becoming a licentiate of the College of Physicians, was able to get
t l M.J3. degree at St. Andrew’s without further examination, on testimonials.

Jeanie

swing up for him at home, she can hardly ha\
loldie in mind; Janie was then a rosebud barely'
years old. But by the end of Henry’s first furlough Janie, by the
standards of that age, had grown up, or nearly so. She was a
schoolgirl of 1 6. 1

Just how and when Henry, then just twice her age, came to
think of Janie as something other than a schoolgirl cannot now
be determined. She does not appear in his or any other family
letters at all till the last month of 1869, the last weeks of Henry’s
stay in Scotland; then she appears as already and recently engaged.
Everything that is known of Henry suggests that he acted on
impulse. Once he began to think of Janie, there would be no
stopping; with Henry, as with his father, once steam was up
there came a fearful haste.

And no impulse for him would be more natural than this
romance. Henry at 32 still revolved at home in the close family
circle, and the family saw no one outside it except a few intimate
friends of whom Mrs. Howison was chief; Jemima and her crony
Jane, putting their heads together, can have wished nothing better
than that Jemima’s youngest son should marry Jane’s eldest
grandchild. And Henry, diough he was twice Janie’s age, was
never older than a boy at heart. It is a family tradition that,
walking with her over Arthur’s Seat, he showed her (as he showed
to his son long after) the rocks which his youthful behind had
polished in sliding down them in the Inzievar-Edinburgh days
before the crash.

But Janie at 16, though she might seem old enough to become
engaged, was not old enough to be married. The arrangement
was that Henry should return to India and that Janie should
follow and marry him there in two years’ time, when she had
turned 18. Henry wrote to Jemima in a letter of which the opening
sheet has been lost:

• • • her bargain for I don’t understand that kind of love that
cannot sacrifice self and I would rather be a Stoic than a Shylock.

1 It is perhaps a sign of Janie's youth that no fixed spelling of her name was ever
established. Officially she was “lane Howison." To Hcr.ry she was “Janie" till he married
her; then he took to adding a letter to her name and re was “Jeanie." Later still he
added yet another letter and she became “Jcannie." - he title of this chapter she is
named as she appears in the tablet which is her mos> lasting memorial in Eyemouth
Church. This, too, was the form in which her name was given to one of Henry and
Annette’s children.

WNIST/f

India Called Them

<§L

er we won’t indulge in gloomy phantoms or visions at*

. *ng and blossoming time of our two lives, but will rather;'as"
you may remember Livy says in the noble preface to his history,
indulge in prayers and hopes for a happy progress and a good result.
The two years will not be long in passing and by that time Janie will
(D.V.) be only still more a ‘wee modest crimson tipped flower’ than
she is now.”

Then Henry goes on to describe a lover’s incident in a cab
and ends: “Poor bairn, I wish she was with her mother.”

This letter is Henry all over, in its use of tilings read by him
whether in English or in Latin as part of his natural speech to his
mother, in his protecting tenderness, and in his unselfishness.
Clearly on the missing sheet he made it plain that if Janie should
in any way regret her bargain he would not seek to hold her.

When this letter was written, just before Christmas 1869,
Henry was already in the last month of his furlough. There was
a great Hogmanay family party, for which Henry provided sherry,
port, and other strong delights, while instructing Phemie to get
in some lemonade, “as that is Janie’s favourite potation.” There
was an attempt, which came to nothing, by Henry, in connivance
with Mrs. Goldie, his mother-in-law to be, to find a house in
Edinburgh for Jemima and to get Jemima moved there. There
was, early in January 1870, a lecture by Henry under the auspices
of the Culross Temperance Society on “Life and Manners in
Bengal .” 1 And then in the last half of January 1870 Henry went
back to India, while his affianced Janie went back to school and
won a prize for French. The choice of Macaulay’s Critical and
Historical Essays as Janie’s prize book was clearly dictated by
Providence or by Henry himself. For to Henry Macaulay was
always the prince of writers. It was in this volume that Henry’s
son William first read about Warren Hastings and Mr. Robert
Montgomery’s poems.

Henry on this occasion steamed from Southampton, instead
of -ailing from Gravesend, and he did not go alone. He took his
eldest sister, Phnnie, with him, in intention for two years, till
Janie should join him in India. But Phemie did not stay and
Henry did not wait so long.

Jfihe hope was tha ! Phemie, even at 39, might find a husband

1 Henry liter quoted freely fror.1 this in his first book on the District cf Bakarganj.

Jeanie

If posted,

it was doomed to disappointment. Barisal.

^of Bakarganj, to which Henry now found himself poste
was not a social centre, and Phemie was reaching a crabbed period
in her life. Her visit to India produced some good letters home,
but was not otherwise a success.

Phemie started back in the spring of 1871 and Henry followed
a few months later to claim his bride. This change of plan may
have been due to nothing but Henry’s normal impatience. It may
have been due to desire of avoiding some of the difficulties of a
marriage ceremony in India. Henry had broken with all churches.
In Scotland he could be and was married in a house, by Stephen
Bell, his brother-in-law, in the home of Mrs. Howison, on
September 12, 1871, when Janie was still under 18. 1 Crossing
Europe to Brindisi he took her out at once to India. His whole
expedition was compressed into four months of special leave,
in May he had written of his plans to his mother.

6/5/71.

I don’t know where I shall take Janie after I marry her but I think
I should like to show her something of the Continent. If Mrs. Goldie
liked she might go with us as far as Brindisi or Alexandria but I am
going to be good for once in my life and leave everything to Janie.
Poor bairn I don’t see why she should not have the delight of ordering
people about for once in her life. I should like her to take a stock of
pleasant impression (sunny memories of foreign lands as Mrs; Stowe
called them) of places with her to India so that she might have some¬
thing to fill her mind with during the somewhat solitary hours when
her husband is in Cutcherry.

Henry throughout his life was always throwing out happy
thoughts for giving pleasure to others. The suggestion here of
inviting his mother-in-law to join his honeymoon was perhaps
his nigh-water mark in this line. It throws light also on the nature
of his marriage. He went on to look forward to Jeanie’s life
in India.

1 do hope that she will like India and I think that she will if the
climate suits her. I would like her to try this place first for it is cool
?nd healthy and I have got to be interested in the district. If however

1 The marriage certificate gives Henry as actually livir g at die time in William Goldie’s
house, No. 1, Grecnhill Bank, and the marriage as taking place at No. 2 The bride’u
a & 0 is 17; the witnesses are Henry’s brother David and Janie’s sister Annie (dien aged 14),

S 3

MiNisr^

India Called Them

(Id chance not to agree with her we would have to try tol 0 _

:er. It is a great comfort to think that I have got a good house

What was the nature of the place to which this ScoL» schoolgirl
was going to start her new life? Henry described it fully and
sympathetically in the book which a few years later he published
on The District of Bakarganj: Its History and Statistics . From
this work the quotations given below are taken.

Bakarganj was nearly the size of Yorkshire, with a population
approaching 2,000,000. Geographically it was part of the delta of
the great rivers—Ganges and Brahmaputra—united in their last
stages to make the Meghna. It w~as an alluvial formation as flat
as a pancake, and cut by innumerable tidal creeks and water¬
courses. It was a vast ricefield which at one season of each year
became a swamp. Henry compared it to an “agricultural Man¬
chester, producing breadstuff's in place of cotton cloths, but
without the art culture for which Manchester is so justly famous/'

There is no ancient history of Bakarganj; no battles have been
fought in it, or at least no traces of them now remain; there are hardly
any resident aristocracy; and there are no art products of any kind.
Other districts have their workers in ivory and silver, their shawl-
makers, &c., but Bakarganj has none of these. Committees for
International Exhibitions can get nothing from it to show in Europe
as trophies of Indian skill or taste. It must be confessed, too, that there
is something depressing in the air of Bakarganj, and in the continual
prospect of swamps and muddy rivers. One longs for a dry tract of
country, across which one could ride or walk without being brought
to a stand every three or four hundred yards by the slimy bank of a
khal.

Bakarganj was the backwoods of Bengal. It was all but in¬
accessible from any large centre of industry, trade, or education:
four to seven days’ journey by water from Calcutta, 180 miles
away, three days’ journey by water from Dacca, 75 miles away.
It had no towns of its own. Barisal, the official centre and Henry’s
home., had 13,000 inhabitants spread over 6 square miles; it
produced four newspapers, but had only one school each for boys
and girls and practically no one went to the latter. “The peasants,”
as Henry said, “do not care for education; and besides, they need
their children to gather their betel-nuts, to row their boats, and
above all to herd their cattle.”

MIN isr^

Jeanie at zy

VIQNV i°

Jeanie

B^kprganj was backwoods, without the bracing clir
yoods in other lands. Henry, writing to Jemima, had
d Barisal healthy, but he knew better. In his later account
lie began by quoting a predecessor from the beginning of the
century: “The atmosphere depresses the spirits in such a manner
as to cause a sensation as if a person was only half alive.” He
proceeded to give his contemporary account of its health.

The cold weather is pleasant, but it is not so bracing as that of the
more northern districts, and does not last more than four months. It
is said that the proximity of Bakarganj to the sea prevents its climate
from ever being very cold. The general complaint against it is of its
dampness. This depresses vitality, and is also most injurious to furni¬
ture, books, &c. It is impossible to keep a house dry unless it is built
on arches. Many of the native government officials and professional
men, and even many of the traders, belong to other districts, especially
to Dacca. They complain of the salt air (Iona howa) of Bakarganj,

and they say that it gives them fever and indigestion.

Cholera is endemic in the district, usually occurring in the
beginning of November, and again in April and May; for several
years, however, it has not been very severe. Fever and dysentery
appear to be the most deadly diseases. Dyspepsia, spleen, and
rheumatism are common. As a remedy for rheumatism many of the
inhabitants are in the habit of keeping an open issue (seton) in the
arm or leg. Dyspepsia often assumes the form called pitshul. Dysentery
and diarrhoea prevail throughout the year, the mortality being greatest
at the termination of the rains, and during the cold season. During
September and October a slight scorbutic tendency is often observed,
owing to the absence of sufficient fresh vegetables, the country being
at the time more or less under water (vide Bensley’s Report for 1871).
Cutaneous diseases—ringworm, itch, &c.—are common. The first
is seen especially among boatmen and others who work in water, the
soles of their feet being often drilled like a sponge.

1 he isolation, both external and internal, of Bakarganj life and
the notorious unhealthiness of its climate affected the character
both of its population and of its administration. No one lived
there if he could live anywhere else. Officially, said Henry,
quoting a friend, Bakarganj from the earliest times had been “the
dustbin of Bengal.” No officer was sent to it except as a punish-
m ent or because he was not thought good enough for a better
district. The landlords were nearly all absentees. The traders.

India Called Them

!rs, and other professional men who with their sek
ly occupied Barisal did not make their homes there; as a
consequence, said Henry, “there are comparatively few women
in it and even ot these a large proportion are professional
prostitutes.”

Even outside the towns like Barisal there was not the village
iife of other parts of India; the peasants were separated not only
from the outer world but from one anodier:

Villages in Bakarganj, and especially in the south, are very different
from villages in Behar or the north-west, or even in Bengal generally.
The houses are much more scattered, and there is little of collective
village life. Each house stands by itself on its mound, surrounded by
a thicket of fruit trees, and there is often no other house in sight or
nearer than several hundred yards. The intervening space, too, is
generally a swamp across which it is toilsome to walk. In such villages
the system of village police is almost non-existent. Mr. Reilly, in an
interesting passage of his report on the Bakarganj police, has touched
upon this peculiarity of life in the south of the district, and assigns to
it the frequency of serious crime.

Henry summed up the general reputation of the Bakarganjites
as follows:

We find, accordingly, that by general consent of foreigners whether
Englishmen or inhabitants of other parts of Bengal, the people of
Bakarganj have certain peculiarities which mark them out from the
rest of their countrymen. These peculiarities are not, I am sorry to
say, of an amiable description, and consist in the possession of
superior craftiness and greater turbulence of spirit.

Of course Henry, with his unfailing capacity for extracting
pleasure or interest from unpromising materials, found good
things as well as bad to say about Bakarganj. He dwelt with delight
on the greenness and freshness of its scenery, contrasting it with
the weary arid plains of Cawnpore and Delhi; on the homesteads,
cadi standing like moated granges embowered in bamboos,
jak-fruit and plantain trees, tamarinds and palms; and above all
on the rivers. Henry’s picture of river traffic shows his sensitive
eye.

The rivers frequently present an animated appearance from the
number oi boats which traverse them, and there is something cheering

5<>

Jeanie

h'iting in the sight of a fleet of white-sailed boats trok
/ a large reach of one of the larger rivers. Such a sight is olt<m~
great advantage in the cold weather at Barisal, when boats of
many shapes and districts come sailing down under the north wind,
and sweep past the town on their way to Bakarganj and other rice-
marts. The traffic on the rivers is no doubt very large, but their tidal
nature may sometimes make it appear greater than it really is. Boatmen
are very gregarious in their habits, and like to keep near other boats
as much as possible. This is partly from a desire for companionship,
and partly as a reminiscence of the times when it was not safe to travel
alone in Bakarganj on account of the dacoits; but independently of
this, it is easy to see that if rivers are tidal, and boatmen have to trust
chiefly to their oars and towing ropes, the boats must keep a good
deal together. Cargo-boats never row against the tide, and though
they will tow against it, the river-banks are not always, or even
generally, provided with towing-paths; so that unless there is a
particular reason for hurry, they come to a halt with the turn of the
tide. It is not always the same tide that is required throughout the
journey. Boat-travelling is very circuitous, and the tides run up and
down the rivers and khals in a very perplexing manner. Thus the
journey from Barisal to Calcutta is far from being an ebb journey
throughout. It is ebb as far as Jhalukatti, then flood, then ebb again;
and there are one or two changes before the Baleshwar is reached and
ascended with the flood. A boat arriving at a place where a change of
tide is required, before the tide that has brought it has run out, moors
or casts anchor, and thus gives time to other boats to come up. Hence
the sight so frequently seen of a crowd of boats anchored at some turn
of tiie stream. As soon as the required tide commences they set off
together, and the river appears to be covered with boats; but if we
were to return to the place in another hour, we might perhaps not
see a single boat. The river now appears deserted, and will remain so
till a turn of the tide bring a fleet of boats from the opposite direction.

He found good also in its people. While admitting their
craftiness and turbulence, he stressed also their amiability and
their kindness to children.

The general character of the Bengali is amiable. ... He is par¬
ticularly fond of children. . . . Bengalis, indeed, are said to spoil
their children by over-indulgence, and certainly they seem to indulge
their whims to almost any extent. I remember to have seen a common
Bengali peasant ploughing his field, which happened to be at the
time under two or three inches of water, while his child was perched

MiN/sr^

India Called Them

boulder. On my asking why he had the child with him,
at it cried at being left behind when his father went to plough,
nat father had taken him out with him, though he would have to
bear his weight the whole fore-noon in order to keep him out of the
water.

But when all this was said he summed up the nature of the
country in discussing how it came to be settled: the settlers must
have been driven there from somewhere else.

I am inclined to think that no one would voluntarily occupy such
a country. In the rains the country is almost one immense lake, in
which the homesteads of the ryots appear as islands, and in April and
i lay it consists of large treeless plains. The villages are never of very
easy access; but things are at their worst at the beginning and at the
end of the rains, for then there is neither enough water for boats nor
sufficient dry land for foot-travelling. Add to this that the country
swarms with mosquitoes, that there are numerous poisonous snakes,
and that the lyots often lose their crops from over-flooding, and it
will be admitted, I think, that the country is not a desirable residence.

Some ten years after Henry wrote this account there was a
discussion in one of the Indian papers, The Englishman , as to
the comparative attractions of different parts of Bengal. One letter
may fitly be quoted:

Mr. Hunter does not institute any comparison between
Bakarganj and the districts of Eastern Bengal all of which have
an evil reputation, but says that the district is one of the most
unpopular and unhealthy of the Province. Tastes differ and
every district has its stout defenders, but this will seem a fair
description to most civilians who have served in the drier districts
of the Lieutenant Governorship of Bengal, as it does to

One who knows Bakarganj.

This letter was written from Calcutta while Henry was in
Scotland, so that it cannot have been his, but it confirms his view
of Bakarganj as a district to which only those would be sent who
stood in the bad books of authority. This was the district to
which Henry was posted for five long years.

1 his was the country to which Jeanie came freely and bravely
To spend the spring and blossoming time of her life. There is now
hardl any record of this time. No word of Jeanie's has survived.

MINISr^

Jeanic

■dick Henry went on writing home to Scotland,

^ with one exception, were lost or destroyed. But from
Ernie’s letters of the year before a glimpse can be had of what
Barisal was like to those like Jeanie who saw it at all seasons.

In June: Burrasaul is delightful just now, so cool and breezy—the
rains are coming and a few goodly plumps have already fallen, making

our compound like an emerald gem with the green trees waving around
it.

In August: We are all rejoicing to think that the cold weather will
be here soon.

In September: Rain still rain—it has never ceased since early
morning but this month should end it and then the fine cold weather
begins. . . . We have been obliged to give up our delightful walks
through the jungle, that palmy region being declared unwholesome at
this season.

In October: We do nothing just now but read through the day and
sleep at night, the midday heat being awful . This is the hottest month
of the year; the rains are over and it mellows the rice in the paddy
marshes; the first breeze has forsaken us for the present. Even the
mornings are stifling, but November is coming to cool us all again
and then we can walk as usual. . . .

Our sunsets just now in spite of the great heats are truly gorgeous
• • . the whole sky flashing with beauty from the most delicate golden
to the richest crimson and then the moonlight is glorious. The
lightning too is wonderful, flashing from behind a mountainous
mass of clouds and throwing a weird blue light on everything. We
stan upon the verandah watching all these phenomena from dusk till
mnei time, to walk just now being utterly impossible, but I take
Vigorous callisthenic exercise in my bathroom every morning before
t ie neat commences which keeps me healthy, the only disagreeable
t ing being having to do it in the dark, , among the chatties! but I look
for cobras well , before beginning.

This was the place into which Jeanie’s baby was to be born
early in 1873. Whether there was any doctor within reach is
uncertain, but it is unlikely; there was certainly no suitable
nursing attendance. So, in October 1872, Jeanie’s mother set out
on an 8,000-mile journey to be with her daughter at this crisis.

hue Mrs. Goldie was on her way, Henry wrote to his mother
| e one letter that survives of his early married life in India. The
etter shows that Barisal was not wholly without other women’s

MIN ISTf?

India Called Than

(£r

y for Jeanie. It speaks of a native fair as in prosper
ie about 6 miles off and of the ladies as thinking of going to it.

io/i 1/72.

There is a road to the place but we shall probably go by water.
I shall send out a tent for the ladies and I hope they will enjoy them¬
selves and get a little pleasant variety. Mrs. Bradbury and probably
the Bensleys are going and the Babu is especially anxious that Mrs.
Beveridge should go and see his “consort.”

The amusements promised are theatrical performances fireworks
and a dinner. Mr. and Mrs. Sale are going down to Calcutta tomorrow
and it is not improbable that they may come up with Mrs. Goldie.
I am sorry to say that I shall not be able to go down to Calcutta. . . .

12/11/72.

I have just come in from a walk. Jeanie has got a slight headache
with the noise caused by the workmen who are repairing the flooring
of the house but is otherwise well.

She has just got up some new music from Calcutta.

Some time late in December 1872 Mrs. Goldie made her way
to Barisal. Some day in January 1873 Henry and Jeanie’s child
was born only to die. A few days later, on January 28th, Jeanie
died. Henry at 36, after sixteen months of marriage, was alone
again, and free to take Mrs. Goldie back to Calcutta on her return
journey of 8,000 miles. They were together in Calcutta for a
few weeks and then at the end of February Mrs. Goldie was seen
off to England by Miss Annette Akroyd, a young Englishwoman
who had come to India to start a school, and whom Mrs. Goldie
had got to know through sharing a cabin on the journey out.

Looking at his dead schoolgirl wife, Henry, in his own words
long after, “felt like a murderer.” He decided in his first despair
to ask for a transfer from Barisal. One of the letters of condolence
which he kept refers to this. ;

2/2/73-

We the undersigned members of the Female Improvement
Association at Barisal, beg respectfully to approach you with this
letter expressive of our deep and heart-felt sorrow at the great and
unexpected calamity which has befallen you. We would not have
ventured to intrude upon you at this time of deep mourning . . . had

MIN ISTffy

Jeanie

v -> yy^iiOt/been informed that on leaving this station on privilege

\ %n,

o not intend to return among us any more.

This letter, bearing about twenty Indian signatures, is itself
evidence of what it says: of how Henry had endeared himself to
the people he served, and of the sorrow that his going would
cause. But Henry was never a quitter. Nor, where his affections
had once been engaged, were they ever broken. As he had written
to Jemima three years before, he had become interested in. the
district and the people of Bakarganj; he was engaged in writing
about them. So when Mrs. Goldie had departed, Henry went
back to Bakarganj; his first letter to Mrs. Goldie’s new friend,
Annette Akroyd, is dated from Barisal.

The next chapters show who Annette Akroyd was and how
she came to be living in Calcutta with Mr. and Mrs. Monmohan
Ghose. ^

VIQNli 0 '

I had the fortune to have a father who was a Jacobin.
William Akroyd of Stourbridge, May 1863.

It is long since I lost hope of gaining anything by force
except from fools.

William Akroyd to his daughter Annette,
December 5, 1864.

Before it is just to say that a man ought to be an inde¬
pendent labourer , the country ought to be in such a state
that a labourer by honest industry can become independent .

William Akroyd at dinner of Poor Law Guardians,

April 1841.

Mr. Akroyd in seconding the resolution stated that he was
no advocate for war at all .

Report of Patriotic Fund Meeting during Crimean
War.

/ have endeavoured through life in conjunction with others
to place Stourbridge on a footing second to no place in the
kingdom .

William Akroyd, May 1863.

MIN IST/f

Chapter V

<SL

WILLIAM AKROYD OF STOURBRIDGE

I N the second quarter of the nineteenth century, in the small
Midland town of Stourbridge in Worcestershire, there was
established a business man of the name of William Akroyd,
who became one of the leading citizens of the town.

As his name suggested, William Akroyd came of Yorkshire
stock. His descendants in due course were able, to their material
advantage, to prove themselves Founder’s Kin of William
Akroyd, who in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries was
Rector of Marston and a priest in the Cathedral Church of York.
This Rector, making his will in 1518, “an old man weak in body
but sound in mind,” left certain lands to two of his nephews,
first to maintain them at Oxford or Cambridge, thereafter as
trustees “to keep one scholar at Oxford or Cambridge to the end
of the world.” As a priest he had no children of his own to
provide for, but he provided the chance of learning as fully as
he could for his kindred. The trustees were to choose as scholar
one near to the Founder in blood and bearing his name; failing
such a scholar, one near in blood though not of his name; failing
that an inhabitant of Marston or Hooton. In the second half of
the nineteenth century the value of the lands so bequeathed
multiplied ten times, as the town of Batley came to be built on
them, and the Charity Commissioners in 1874 made a new
scheme to use these increased resources. The William Akroyd
Foundation helped to maintain the Batley Grammar School and
became one of the original sources of the University of Leeds.
William Akroyd Scholarships have helped and still help many
a grammar school boy from the West Riding to a University.
But there are Founder’s Kin Scholarships still reserved for those
who can prove descent from the brothers or uncles of the
sixteenth-century Founder.

The Stourbridge William Akroyd though of Yorkshire stock,
was not, as a matter of strict inheritance, entitled to his surname.
His connection with the Founder was unknown to him and was
established only after his death. The connection came through

63 c*

MiNisr^

India Called Them

id mother, Mary Akroyd, one of eight children of;
"yeoman and clothier of Ovenden near Halifax. MarWit
iff Bates of Halifax she became Mary Bates, but her son James
quarrelled with his father, ran away from Yorkshire to the
Midlands, and assumed his mother’s maiden surname, becoming
James Akroyd. He passed at the same time out of the will-making
middle class in which his mother’s family had been for generations,
earned his living as a stone-mason in Birmingham, married there
about 1800, and in due course apprenticed his son William to
a currier.

Living in Birmingham through die time of die French Revolu¬
tion and the Priestley Riots, this young James Akroyd, in revolt
against his family, became a political rebel also. On a notable
occasion in his own life later, William Akroyd of Stourbridge
attributed all that he had been and done to the early influence
of his father. From this fadier, whom he described as a Jacobin,
he had imbibed a tendency to strong political opinions, a horror
of dependence on others, and a conviction that every man had
dudes to perform not only to himself and his family but to the
State. He had certainly inherited from his Yorkshire ancestors,
and he transmitted to his children a full ration of “the strong
sagacity and the dogged power of will” which Mrs. Gaskell 1
attributes as their birthright to the natives of the West
Riding.

William Akroyd of Stourbridge, born in the year before
Trafalgar and dying in the year before Bismarck’s Franco-
German War, was in his business career an epitome of his time.
He reached manhood and completed his apprenticeship as a
currier in Birmingham during the crisis of 1825-26, perhaps the
worst year, as he described it later, that England had known. In
depressions smaller towns are often less hit than great cities.
Young William got the chance of a journeyman’s job in Stour¬
bridge and came there, not meaning to stay. But he did stay. He
found people he liked in Stourbridge, and after four years as
a journeyman came at the age of 26 to two decisions, to marry
and to start in business as a currier on his own. The house in
which he began and carried on for twenty years still stands in
Foster Street, Stourbridge, surmounted by a brick structure on

* The Life of Chrrlotte Bronte, Chapter II.

William Akroyd of Stourbridge

in some lights the notice “William Akroyd, Currier,'
read.

)nce independent, William Akroyd, in his own words, “crept
on and on in the same manner as a large number of persons did
and would do.” But he was not a man to creep along one line,
above all in that era when industrialization was transforming
England. He threw himself into many of the new activities which
industrialization was bringing to his part of England; he was
concerned with engineering, banking, railways. He held for many
years the fee-ed position of High Bailiff of the Worcester County
Court. He became manager of die Stourbridge Gas Works and
in that capacity, by a combination of concessions and firmness,
quelled a revolt of consumers who thought they were being
charged too much and that they could get gas more cheaply by
starting a rival company.

In all these activities William Akroyd proved himself an astute
and successful business man. He wrote to his daughter Annette
in December 1864: “I have been to a valve works meeting this
afternoon and had the best of ancient Mr. Pitman out-bidding
him for some shares that were for disposal.” And two years before
he had registered twenty-five shares in the Oldbury Carriage
Works in Annette’s name (doing the same with others of his child¬
ren), not as a gift to her, for the shares were “hardly suitable for a
young lady,” but “in order to defeat a dodge of which the
projectors think I have no knowledge.” His business success was
founded on wakefulness and on a cool though not unsympathetic
judgment of his fellow-men. “Eight years to-day,” he wrote to
Annette, “since my brother died. And in that time I who have
had to do with many men have not met with one to whom I
could place implicit confidence. Not that I don’t know lots who
if one knew them better would probably obtain the fullest
measure of one’s confidence.” His success -was based on other
qualities as well: on what even his opponents recognized as
unimpeachable integrity and on what his obituary notice described
as the astonishing vigour of mind and capability for exertion
implanted in him by nature.

William Akroyd’s business success established him at last in
Parkfield—a columned mansion just outside Stourbridge which
used to be known as “Moore’s Folly” and has now become a

WHIST#

India Called Them

estate. His success enabled him, in addition to
arovision for his widow, to leave something approai
^ooo to each of his large double family. But he was not first
and foremost a business man. Like Francis Place a few years
before him, he began as a journeyman and made a fortune as an
employer. But, as much as Francis Place, he found his main scope
and interest in public service rather than in private business. He
became for twenty years the leading public character of his
adopted town.

As a poor young stranger, he began humbly, in his chapel
connection and by attending meetings of ratepayers. The chapel
that he joined, having been founded as Presbyterian, had become
Unitarian. William contributed £1 to a fund for clearing its debts
at a time when he had very few pounds indeed. He went on
at once to organize a penny library among the congregation.
As he explained later, when he came to Stourbridge, he was in
a library at Birmingham and for a time continued to get his
books from that town, for there was nothing of the sort yet at
Stourbridge; so William set out to meet the need for books, for
himself and others. The demand for books in his new town
proved overwhelming; die plan was widened to the establishing
of a Mechanics Institute which grew and grew and of which
William Akroyd in all its developments remained a prime mover.

Naturally he became the leading figure in his chapel com¬
munity, Chairman of the Committee and Treasurer of the
Provident Fund for innumerable years. And of course he attended
chapel with great regularity though not always to his spiritual
advantage. “The rain has reached us and filled our hearts with
gladness,” he wrote to his daughter one summer day when he
was 60. “In this happy condition of mind I went to church and
heard a funeral sermon which I have heard before and which
made me a sadder but not wiser man. I’ll turn Quaker. I see no
good in praying machines; grease them as you will they won’t go.
That is, more than half of them won’t—cannot —and they ought
to go stone-breaking or organ-grinding.” William Akroyd was
a moral rather than a religious man. As he put it in one of his
peeches, to his mind the discharge of duty was worship.

William Akroyd’s other line of approach to public life, through
attendance at meetings of ratepayers, led him straight to one of

MINISr^y

William Akroyd of Stourbridge

<SL

$t*0rin centres of social policy in his period—the administrfc
* e Poor Law. Rates in the eighteen-twenties.went largely on
outdoor relief of the poor. William Akroyd found himself made
overseer of the poor and then, just as he was beginning to feel
his feet in business, there came the famous Poor Law Report of
1834. William Akroyd had already impressed himself upon his
townsfolk as a young man to be used. Without his knowledge,
he was nominated and elected to the Stourbridge Board of
Guardians, one of the new local authorities designed to perform
on English society a surgical operation—of cutting out a mon¬
strous unhealthy growth of outdoor relief and subsidized sweated
wages, without starving the poor in the process.

The Stourbridge Board of Guardians get established about
1837 and by 1841 had become so pleased with themselves and
their work that they determined to celebrate themselves by a
dinner. So one Friday in April of that year at the Vine Hotel
“about 30 gentlemen sat down to a sumptuous repast. . . . The
viands were as is usual at the Vine of the very first order and
in great profusion.” So the local Press reported.

The toasts and speeches were as profuse as the viands. After
honouring duly the Queen, The Royal Family, the Army, the
Navy, H.M. Ministers and the Lord Lieutenant, the 30 gentlemen
worked steadily through themselves, with toasts to and replies
from the Chairman, the Clerk, the Auditor, two or three
Medical Officers, two Relieving Officers, two Collectors, two
Registrars, Overseers late and present, the Governor of the
Workhouse, and several more heroes unnamed. The Chief
Medical Officer contributed a Bacchanalian song, and each of the
elected guardians gave tongue. In the chorus of mutual back-
slapping, in which an earlier speaker had described the New Poor
Law as “the nearest approach of any to the 43rd of Elizabeth
which was the best poor-law ever passed,” one speaker struck
suddenly a new note. William Akroyd brought the diners back
to consider the human realities of their task.

They were Guardians and they had duties to discharge not
only to the rate-payers but to the poor themselves for whom all
Poor Laws were passed. . . . Nearly all the remarks which had
been made that evening had reference to the Poor Law Amend¬
ment Act and not to the parties who were receiving relief before

India Called Them

^ measure passed into a law. If they referred to the returns
om 899 parishes, they would find it stated that there were a
great number of individuals who could not possibly live upon
the wages they were receiving without aid from the rates. . . .
Before it was just to say that a man ought to be an independent
labourer , the country ought to be in such a state that a labourer by
honest industry could become independent . It had been said that the
new Poor Law Bill was an amendment on the 43rd of Elizabeth
. . . but they ought not to forget that they were very different
in their nature, the object of the Act of Elizabeth having been to
provide labour for those who were too idle to w’ork, and food
and shelter for those who were unable to labour for themselves.
The great difficulty now was not to make people labour but to
find labour for them to perform. (Hear, hear). ... He knew
that the great principle of the Bill of withholding outdoor relief
w r as not in operation and could not be in operation because there
were not workhouses enough to receive all who required
relief. . . . Such being the case, he thought, when they said that
Poor Law Bill was everything that they wanted, they were going
too far.

<SL

The assembled diners, to do them justice, took, this lecture
from one of their youngest members very well. Mr. Akroyd
resumed his seat amid loud cheers. He was allowed to get up
again later and, on the plea of proposing the health of the Press,
the only people present who had remained untoasted till then,
he made a second speech. The Board of Guardians clearly recog¬
nized their coming master’s voice; in due course they made
William Akroyd their Vice-Chairman for five years, and then their
Chairman for twelve years, till he insisted on resigning.

The administration of the Poor Law was the task to which,
through most of his working life, William Akroyd gave more
of his time and thought than he gave to any other single purpose;
it was said that he never missed a meeting of the Board for more
than twenty years. His aim, of course,was to reduce pauperism and
he prided himself on doing so. But he never forgot the days’of his
own poverty or what it was to be a workman dependent on a
wage. The sentence italicized in his speech (italicized because
obviously he spoke it with special emphasis-—and he repeated
it) might well have stood as the text of a book written by liis
grandson a hundred years later, on Full Employment in a Free

MIN/Sty

William Akroyd of Stourbridge

What William Akroyd meant in practice was some'
t from what his grandson meant, to suit the condit!
day. He meant first and foremost repealing the Corn Laws,
and removing obstacles to the growth of industry and trade.

William Akroyd was naturally an early and ardent Anti-Corn-
Law Leaguer, working with the League locally from its beginning,
getting his Board of Guardians to pass a resolution in favour of
repeal, becoming by 1841 recognized by his opponents as the
“great gun of the political economists of Stourbridge,” organizing
meetings and having to deal with Chartist interruptions, corre¬
sponding with Cobden and Bright to persuade them to come
to speak.

As another means of furthering the same cause, and no doubt
of increasing his income, he became for a time a newspaper
correspondent—a course which near the end of his life he recom¬
mended for imitation by any young man who desired to advance
himself. He was always rather proud of his connection with the
Press and had the good sense as a public man to be polite and
helpful to reporters. They repaid him by reporting him with a
clarity which is evidence both of their skill and of liis. He seems
never to have waffled even after the most sumptuous efforts of
the Vine. As the local paper said of him in an obituary notice,
“he was eminently a man of action endowed with perfect presence
of mind and with all his resources at command in emergency.”

To William Akroyd in the ’forties Free Trade was not politics,
but a crusade cutting across all parties. He said this in terms which
echo Cobden. To party politics he came later—only when he was
a leading citizen. He came, of course, as an ardent Liberal, making
good thumping anti-Tory speeches, contrasting the miserable
condition of the country before 1832 and 1846 with its present
prosperity, and defining Liberalism in a way not unfamiliar to
his successors on the Liberal hustings. “He did not say that the
new prosperity was owing to any government or any patty,
but he did say that it was owing to the policy which in order
to distinguish it was called Liberal—Liberal because it had regard
to the interest of the whole and not to any part or section.”

When he came to party politics, he threw himself into them
with characteristic thoroughness. He devoted unlimited personal
trouble to securing the registration of voters and set out the

India Called Them

3 /of his efforts in vast statistical letters to the local pa
^ at East Worcestershire was predominantly Liberag
owever it might vote at elections. The persuasive effect of one
of these letters was slightly marred by the fact that in an argument
on another subject a few days before he had said: “I have not
much faith in figures myself; they can be turned any way/’ This
was duly reported and duly exploited by an opponent.

From the late ’fifties onwards William Akroyd was in the
centre of every political fray in his Division. He appears in an
advertisement as honorary secretary of the Liberal Committee
for East "Worcestershire in a bye-election of 1861. He gives up
a holiday with his family in order to run an election in 1865; f° r
that and a later contest he raises large sums for the Liberal cause,
for contests were even more costly then than now:

I have begged about £5000 and by dint of taxing the Bills hope to
get out for £4000 or little more and so we start fair on the next
campaign which win or lose will be my last.

His last campaign was 1868, when at intervals of a few months
two elections were fought in East Worcestershire. His daughter
Annette’s diary for that year —she was then 25—is full of election
activities, canvassing, dining candidates, and so forth.

The first election for Lyttelton against Laslett ends in triumph
for Annette. “Our majority 279 against bribery, treatings, etc.”
The second election, in November, ends on a sad, familiar note:
“Our election lost for Mr. Martin — a horrible sensation to be
unsuccessful.”

But William Akroyd was a party politician only as he was
everything else as well in Stourbridge. He had come there as a poor
unknown working man at 22. By 42 he had reached the stage of
having his portrait presented to him at a dinner by his townsfolk.
From that time onwards, no public meeting in the town, whatever
its purpose, was complete without him. Protests against income
tax, demands to legalize marriage with a deceased wife’s sister,
meetings about waterworks or a new burial-ground or a Dispen¬
sary, meetings to establish a Sanitary Association or a School
of Design, meetings to elect a minister for Stourbridge Church 1
or raise a Patriotic Fund for widows and orphans of the Crimean
War, whatever * he occasion, William Akroyd was there, often

‘ Now St. Thomas’s Parish Church.

misTfy

William Akroyd of Stourbridge

airman
manner'

one

generally moving or seconding “in a very
of the principal resolutions, always making a
pointed and well-reported speech. On one occasion, being asked
to second a resolution for establishing a School of Design, he
was about to speak shortly, but the meeting recalled him and
demanded a longer speech; he proceeded to emphasize the duty
of landowners to promote cultivation of their resources. On
another occasion choice of him to support the raising of a Patriotic
Fund in the Crimean War was clearly dictated by his known
attitude to war. It gave him a chance to remember his father and
the Jacobin view of the Napoleonic Wars.

Mr. Akroyd in seconding the resolution stated that he was no
advocate for war at all and therefore he felt some responsibility
in taking part in the present meeting. He would not, however,
enter into a discussion about war generally; his notion of the
present war was that if any war could be just this w r as a just war,
and it was a holy war if any w r ar could be called holy. It w r as a
war in which great and important principles were at stake. It
was nearly 200 years since this country was found fighting for
great principles, for unfortunately, since then, the wars in which
this country had always engaged, had been against the liberties
of mankind. . . . The war to which he alluded (as the last war
fought by us for principles) was when Oliver Cromwell took
the part of the Low Countries against Austria, a tyrant second
only to the one against whom we were now at war. He rejoiced
that for once England and France were together on the side of
liberty. . . . And having entered into war, though war itself was
repugnant to the mind, the more earnestness thrown into it the
better and the sooner was it likely to end. . . . The raising of a
large Patriotic Fund would be a sign of popular feeling which
becoming known abroad through the press, might do something
towards deciding the wavering despots of the continent ... to
throw their contemptible weight on that side of the scales.

A few years after this William Akroyd won his greatest victory.
Through practically all his time in the town, Stourbridge had
wanted a railway. But efforts made by others in the ’thirties,
’forties, and early ’fifties all failed At last about 1859 William
Akroyd put his back into the busi ness, and by 1863 ^ ie railway
was practically there—his acknowledged child. He became and
remained its Chairman.

MIN/Sr^

India Called Them

tion

Akroyd had already had one civic presentation_

picture at 42. By the time he was 60 his townsfolk decided he
must have another, which this time took the form of an inscribed
tea tray, a tea service and a candelabrum. There appears to have
been no obvious occasion for this presentation; William Akroyd
had not endowed a hospital or retired from any post; he had not
just been defeated for Parliament, or had a birthday, or suffered
any other reverse. The tea tray came to him out of the blue sky
in his sixtieth year, as “the appreciation of the personal character
and of the zeal, ability, and integrity with which he has for many
years laboured to promote the interests of this town and neigh¬
bourhood/’ It was received by him with trepidation as to what
he should say on the occasion and even greater trepidation as to
what might be said by others. As he wrote to his Annette:

Already I hear of some six who propose to butter me. Of course
each one will attribute to me the virtues he thinks he possesses himself.
So I may expect to be presented in a sort of hybrid character, a com¬
pound of weaknesses for which I have the most sovereign contempt.

Whatever William Akroyd might say to his daughter, there
can be no doubt that the presentation was a very pleasant affair,
and that 20-year-old Annette, who had had the responsibility of
choosing the tea tray, enjoyed herself hugely. Some at least of
the butter was genuine; much of it came from men who were
careful to point out that they did not like Mr. Akroyd’s politics;
the testimonial, said the Chairman, was started by persons who
really differed from the man they desired to honour.

And whatever William Akroyd might say, neither Annette
nor any of his townsfolk can have believed that he disliked
making speeches. On this occasion, as on others, he made two
speeches at least: he jumped at the chance of recalling his Jacobin
father and his early days, of making amends to opponents, of
declaring his central purpose:

If at any time he had hurt any man’s feelings, it was not his
intention to do so. If he had done so, he hoped it wx>uld be
forgiven, and that it would be laid to the account not of his
intention but of his nature which led him on all occasions to take
the shortest possible route towards that which appeared to him
to be the truth and that which he thought was right. . . .

William Akroyd of Stourbridge

had endeavoured in all things to do that which he profes:

He had endeavoured through life in conjunction with others
to place Stourbridge on a footing second to no place in the
kingdom (cheers), and he would venture to say that taking into
account the amount of the population it was second to no place
in the kingdom. (Renewed cheering.) Days like that however,
were not to men at his time of life days of unalloyed happiness
and enjoyment, for they brought to mind men with whom he
had worked in the past, who were no longer with us.

And he proceeded to name them. William Akroyd was a
remarkable man. His story prompts a comparison with that
earlier radical already named whose fame is established.

William Akroyd was like Francis Place in beginning life as
an operative and in a few years launching out on his own to
make a fortune. He had probably at least as much native ability
and energy and persistence, with a greater command of words.
He did not, like Place, have a son old enough to replace him in
business and let him concentrate on public work. He did not have
the searing experience of an unsuccessful strike with starvation
to follov/, that lived always in Place’s mind and drove him on
in fighting for a place for trade unions. But William Akroyd was
like Francis Place in never forgetting what he had most wanted
as a poor young man—independence and the chance to read—
and so trying to get them for others. And he had learned from
his father that man owes a duty to the State.

For practical purposes the main difference between the two
men was that Francis Place was in London and William Akroyd
in Stourbridge. In London one had no neighbours; there was
no scope for local patriotism; but there might be contact with
national government. In Stourbridge duty to the State inevitably
took the absorbing form of service to one’s neighbours. So, while
Francis Place, working centrally, brought about the Repeal of
the Combination Laws, William Akroyd as his crowning achieve¬
ment brought a railway to Stourbridge. Francis Place has seventy
volumes of papers in the British Museum and several biographies.
William Akroyd is forgotten except by archivists in the town
where for twenty years he was indispensable.

I don t think any general (that isn’t Papas or Mammas)
argument ever altered an opinion of mine .

Annette Akroyd (aged 18) to her father,

March 3, 1861.

We have been imprudently before our times and have no
right to blame others who have kept pace with them .

Mrs. E. J. Reid (Founder of Bedford College,
London) to Annette Akroyd, 1865.

1 he greatest benefit that you can confer upon a man is to
give him a due respect for women .

Mrs. E. J. Reid to Annette Akroyd,

January 7, 1864.

Never was there a more willing and indomitable spirit than
yours .

Mrs. Aubrey to Annette Akroyd,

November 29, 1871.

At the present moment a thousand Hindu homes are open
to receive and welcome English governesses, well-trained
accomplished English ladies, capable of doing good to their
Indian sisters both by instruction and by personal example .

Keshub Chunder Sen on English Tour,

August 1, 1870.

Of the greater part of India, it can still unfortunately be
said that it has no girls. It has children and married women
and no such class such as we think of here when we speak of
our girls .

Annette in writing of Lady Phear’s and her own
work in India in February 1898.

WNIST/fy.

A YOUNG LADY BEFORE HER TIMES

S UCCESSFUL business men were as plentiful as blackberries
in the Victorian Age and presentation tea trays were not
rare. Nor fortunately was public spirit rare, though there
cannot have been many, even in that age, who combined so
much energy and ability and private success as William Akroyd
with making public service still their major interest. But William
Akroyd had another special quality also, in his family relations.
He was an early-Victorian with a post-Georgian outlook.

Physically his family was Victorian, in its size and in its death
roll. He married first, when he started in business on his own
account, Sarah Walford, a young woman of his own age of 2 6;
the daughter of a livery stable keeper who had at least one claim
to originality—that he owned the first funeral hearse in Stour¬
bridge. When Sarah died at 45, having borne him six children,
in the next year he married again and had another five children.
The births or baptisms and deaths or burials of this double family
are worth recording to illustrate a bygone era.

Married, First. 1830. Sarah Walford (died May 17, 1849, aged 45).

1. Eliza, baptized September 11, 1831, died September 15, 1858,
aged 27.

2. James, baptized March 17, 1833, buried March 30, 1834, aged
13 months .

3. Sarah Ellen, baptized March 5, 1837, buried September 9, aged
5 months .

4. Villiam, baptized January 3, 1840, buried February 14, aged
6 weeks.

5. Fanny Louisa, born December 26, 1840, died November 25,
*9 2 <>, aged 85.

6. Annette Susannah, bom December 13, 1842, died March 29, 1929,
aged 86.

Married, Second. November 30, 1850. Mary Anne (daughter of Mr.
Perks, Tailor, Stourbridge, bom September 18, 1816, died
March 20, 1889, aged 72).

7. Lucy Ann, baptized October 26, 1851, buried September 25,
1852, a S e d 12 months.

India Called Them

185

/s, baptized October 9, 1853, buried January 13,

*■$>5 months.

9. Kate Lloyd, bom March 20,1855, died February 21,1934, aged 78.

10. Helen, born February 2, 1856, died September 16, 1927, aged 71.

11. William Edward, bom May 10, 1857, died in Gisborne, New

Zealand, October 16, 1916, aged 59.

Here in baptismal and burial records of those who would have
been my aunts or uncles is the “sheer waste of suffering” which
H. G. Wells described and E. J. Sullivan illustrated so strikingly
in A Modern Utopia. There was nothing wrong with William
Akroyd’s stock. Of those who survived infancy, all but one lived
vigorous lives to a full span. But five out of the eleven died
as babies.

William Akroyd’s family did not escape the common Victorian
fate. But they did not have a Victorian tyrant for a father.

The first of all his surviving letters to Annette was occasioned
by his having to pull out a tooth for her because she feared to go
to a dentist, and presents a picture worth recording in full:

Foster Street,

Jany. 10th 1853.

My dear Annette,

You did not mention the opening made by the tooth you
parted with on the morning of your departure hence, and I am there¬
fore led to hope that you have forgotten the pain and anguish you
suffered in the operation—or rather in the preparation for it, and the
several unsuccessful attempts at it.

Well I am glad it has not interfered widi your happiness, and am
myself but too sorry ever to be compelled to give you pain either of
mind or body. But everyone has duties to perform, most of them very
agreeable, some otherwise, and none must or can be neglected without
bringing evil consequences.

Now you see the painful duty which devolved on you and I, you
to bear and I to inflict pain, will again arise, and I am writing to ask
you to think about it and to reason so far upon it as to lead to the
conviction that it is better to bear a little present evil pain than a
long period of suffering in after life. And I wish you could so far
conquer your dread of dentists as to let one of them draw your next
tooth; they are used to the operation and perform it with more skill
than I can; at the same time if you cannot do this I will do my best
and hope to succeed more readily than on the last occasion.

A Young Lady Before Her Times

entrust you with a dozen kisses \which with my lo
yi/de with dear Eliza and Fanny and so remain your affecti'

Father.

X&T

P.S. I am very pleased with your account of your travels to the
Red River and your bog-trotting after. Fine writing and strait lines
are of secondary importance compared with good ideas conveyed in
proper language. In this I think you were successful.

This appeal to reason in io-year-old Annette is written by
William Akroyd with special care and legibility, not as he wrote
sometimes in the agonies of gout. The principle underlying his
appeal he made explicit, when some twelve years later there was
a question as to whether Annette should come home for Christmas
or enjoy herself elsewhere:

I am right glad to hear that you are enjoying yourself free from all
fear of being “commanded” to come home. It is long since I lost hope
of obtaining anything by force except from fools.

This was pure Liberal doctrine in family relations. Least of all
was William Akroyd one who used his money power over his
children. He had put himself back again by his own exertions
into the will-making class. But he did not shake his will at his
descendants. On his 64th birthday, Annette notes in her diary:
“Papa . . . presented each of us five with £ 1,000 worth of
Stourbridge Railway Shares”; a month later (he was to die before
reaching 65), “Papa explained to us about the will.” William
Akroyd wanted his family to know just how they would stand
and he wanted them to have the maximum of freedom. He
arranged matters so that if his widow and children chose to live
together they could do so, but if any of them wished to go and
live by herself she should have more money to pay the additional
costs, He was a most original early Victorian father.

Nor, while William Akroyd lived, was there any of that dtiving
out of old affections by new ones which Jemima Beveridge had
noted in her husband’s family. To the three surviving daughters
of the first wife—Eliza, Fanny, and Annette—the second wife
came in as “Mama”; there still survives-a rhyming loving non¬
sense letter written by her to them in the days of her engagement.
But the youngest of the three learned at the critical age of seven

India Called Them

was to be without a mother, and the knowledge
^ 3 ^ 3 ater to a critical decision as a mother when her own daughter
was eight. Annette learned also to idolize her father. Through all
her wanderings she kept an envelope of “My beloved father’s
letters.” Sixty years after his death, almost the last action of her
long life was to care for her father’s grave behind the Presbyterian
Chapel in Stourbridge.

All William Akroyd’s children were devoted to him, for he
was that kind of father. But Annette, the youngest child of his
first marriage, was his special friend. The children of his second
marriage were children still when he died. His elder daughter
Fanny, in relation to Annette, took second place and followed
her lead. Annette was physically a tiny creature, never much
more than 60 inches high. But she held those inches as upright
as a ramrod and every inch of her radiated pure energy and
indomitable will. To those who in later life came to know her best
she seemed to have more than a touch of Queen Elizabeth and
showed something of that sovereign’s mien. 1

Of course when young Annette wanted higher education she
was allowed to get it. At least she got the highest that was going
for young ladies of her time. There were no University degrees
for women when Annette grew up. 2 But Bedford College in
London was there for the higher education of ladies. It had been
founded in 1849 on an undenominational basis. Its founder, Mrs.
Reid, was a Unitarian, as w^ere most of her associates. William
Akroyd and his family w'ere Unitarians. When Annette at 18
asked for higher education, she made naturally for Bedford
College. She went there with her elder sister Fanny, and she
spent there three whole sessions from i860 to 1863. She learned
mathematics among other things from Richard Holt Hutton,
die distinguished first editor of the Spectator ; in a letter which
he wrote to her a few years later, he spoke of “your acute and
reflective mind.”

Annette enjoyed herself hugely at College and proved an out¬
standing student. This is shown by her certificates. It is shown

1 Annette in early childhood appears with a clog on the dust-cover.

2 Degrees for v omen began in London in 1878. Even the radical University of London
by the late 'sixties had only got itself to the point of being willing to examine women,
not by the same paper as men, but by a different set of questions of the same standard;
Annette, as is recorded later, went through this solemn farce of passing a different paper
of the men's standard.

misr/f

A Young Lady Before Her Times

)re by the letters which Mrs. Reid wrote to her
id after; the letters were for Annette’s elder sister also, but
were sent to Annette as the leader. “You never think trouble of
doing a kind action or of obliging me.” “It seems to me that
such girls as you two earnest workers do more for these thought¬
less ones than we elders with our little sermons and our heartfelt
desire to see them improve.” Mrs. Reid liked Annette so much
that she wanted more pupils from Stourbridge. “Surely there
must be a few Akroyds there under divers names.” She made
Annette her recruiting officer and her secret emissary for paying
the fees of girls who could not come without such help.

One of Annette’s own letters of this time shows unmistakably
m the girl of 18 the woman of the future. After recording
splendid lectures” at College, on Greek literature, Latin, and
the Russian climate, she refers to heated student arguments.

My motto is, when I see anyone getting warm, “Well, it’s no use,
no argument will ever alter an opinion, unless its a very wwobstinate
person’s.” ... I do not think any general (that isn’t Papa’s or
Mamma’s) argument ever altered an opinion of mine.

All her days only someone whom she loved as much as she
loved her father, her husband, or her son William, had much
chance of changing by argument any opinion of Annette’s, once
she had formed it.

Annette at 21, returning from Bedford College to Stourbridge
with her sheaves of certificates and her education, wanted to use
her brains in doing something useful. Most of all she w'ould have
liked to help her father. She offered to take bankruptcy off his
hands, that is to say, to do some of his routine work as High
Bailiff of the County Court, but he answered that what she could
do would not really save his time. She then made another pro¬
posal, which her father described as “equally kind but far more
important” at whose nature it is not possible now to do more
than guess; one may guess that in one form or another it meant
working for a living and taking herself off her father’s hands
completely. But this was trying even William Akroyd too high.
No doubt he was sympathetic to his favourite daughter. Some
years before, as an alternative to Bedford, he had suggested
making her some kind of secretary to himself. “Hurrah, for the

MiNisr^

India Called Them

yship,” wrote her bosom friend Lucy Harrison. ^Ji|t
ler your father is! You can book me as under-clerk at once.’
Sut she went to Bedford College instead and when she came
home there did not seem much real work for her to do. William
Akroyd had been delighted to meet his daughter’s demand for
education. He used to say that he had no education himself, but
had given education to his daughters, so that all difficult questions
could be referred to them. But apart from the interest of their
company, he found no simple way of using their active brains
and inexhaustible energies. His daughters were delightful, but
why would they insist on growing up? “I scarcely can imagine,”
lie wrote to Annette at 18, “a reason for rejoicing because girls
grow older. With lads it is otherwise.” But William’s only
surviving lad was barely four years old; he never had Francis
Place s chance of handing over his business to a son and becoming
free for public service. To hand over to a daughter seemed
impossible—and anyhow “Mama” the step-mother would not
have stood for that.

So ardent Annette, in her years from 22 to 27, records in her
diary little but the conventional round for young ladies with
prosperous Papas: “tracting” nearly every Monday and Tuesday,
Chapel and Sunday school every Sunday, Choral classes, Ragged
School collections, balls, social engagements, visits to. friends,
journeys to London with visits to Parliament (once she heard
Dizzy and Mill and Lowe), and a yearly trip to the seaside. She
broke this round once by going back after three years to Bedford
College, sitting an examination and carrying off £8 as a first
prize for Latin; her diary characteristically understates this
achievement: “learned that I had passed.” In the year following
she started learning Greek. But all this was frittering to a creature
of first-class brain and overwhelming energy. One of Annette’s
mentors in London wrote to her at this time that with ragged
schools and Sunday school and so on she appeared well occupied,
but the tone of the letter shows that Annette did not think so.

In the Stourbridge ’sixties there was nothing that a well-
endowed young lady, however well educated, could do except
try to find a husband to whom she could look up without too
great a strain on her humour. That, even in Mrs. Reid’s view, was
largely the purpose for which she had been trained. Bedford

A Young Lady Before Her Times.

was meant not to take young women away fro
but to turn them into wives better worth marrying,
greatest benefit you can confer upon a man,” she wrote to
Annette, “is to give him a due respect for women.”

Finding in Stourbridge a husband whom she could respect was
for anyone as clever as Annette not altogether simple. A diary
note made by her at 22 suggests the alarming young lady that
she must have been to provincial males:

February 22. Bachelor’s Ball. Very great fun in some things.

Not very lively (mentally). Good dancing.

Annette between 23 and 27 was an example of a general rule
of statecraft: that the widening of educational opportunity and
the opening of new careers for those who have been without them
hitherto—whether, they are boys from elementary schools or
natives of India or women—ought to proceed together. If
educational opportunity runs ahead of career opportunity, there
will be trouble. Annette was not unhappy, but, in a phrase used
to her by JVlrs. Reid she was experiencing what it was to be
imprudently before her times. If William Akroyd had lived a full
span, Annette would probably have gone tracting and young
ladying, till she met the normal fate of Victorian young ladies.
There would have been no occasion for this volume.

But William Akroyd ended suddenly through dropsy before
he was 65. 1 he exertions and the disappointment of the November
1868 election left him indisposed. Just before Christmas he fell
ih, eailj- in January Annette went away “to keep home quiet for
die dear invalid”; three days later she was called back to find
Papa to all appearance dying. Doing for her father what so often
later she was to do for her children in fighting death, she, not
11's wife Mrs. Akroyd, sat up with her father all that night and die
next night. But in a few days more, on January 17, 1869, he
died, leaving as her diary records, “blankness and dreariness
inexpressible.”

He left room and need also for a completely new life for
Annette. 1 he double family which centred round William Akroyd
broke with his death. The second Mrs. Akroyd, though she had
become Mamma to the first family, had clear views as to the
future: five women without regular -occupation should not try

misr/fy

India Called Them

^together in the same house. Mrs. Akroyd’s portrait su\^
len she had made up her mind she held to it. Annettear
7 anny at 28 were uprooted.

Three months after William Akroyd was in his grave, Annette's
diary notes: Mamma pronounced divorce in the family; was very
decided, but rather hard-hearted. 55 Parkfield with all its memories
was abandoned. Mamma and her three children hived off to one
furnished house in London. Annette and Fanny, after staying to
pack and sort papers, hived off to another. They had no careers
ready made and no need to earn their livings. The world was all
before them where to choose, empty as the world always becomes
suddenly empty, whatever one’s age, when one’s last parent is
just dead.

Education for all was in the air. The Working Men’s College
had been founded by Frederick Maurice and Thomas Hughes
in 1854. It was followed by a Working Women’s College eleven
years later. Annette was to some extent associated with this
foundation; both Mrs. Reid and her friend Lucy Harrison in
1865 wrote of it to her as “your Working Women’s College.”
But, though she visited it occasionally, she took no regular part
in it while William Akroyd lived; she had home ties which were
sacred. And when he died she filled most of the first empty year
with a new but well-recognized form of young ladying. Duly
chaperoned by a Mrs. Aubrey, Annette and Fanny and a third
young woman, Meta Brock, made an immense continental tour:
Antwerp, the Rhine, Heidelberg, Black Forest, Schaffhausen,
Zurich, Lucerne and the Rigi, over the Gotthard (one could not
go through it then) to the Italian Lakes, Italy from end to end,
and back again through new parts of Switzerland and France.
Annette herself broke the tour for a month to come alone to
England and talk family business with Mamma, but the talk “all
ended miserably” and she went back to her companions in Italy.
It was the end of July 1870, eighteen months after her father’s
death, before she was really back home again.

In her absence the fates had been turning the wheel for her.
The Unitarian connection had sent her to Bedford College. The
same connection now led her to a longer and more fateful journey.

The moment was one of great general interest in India, which
had become since the Mutiny the brightest jewel in the Imperial

misr/fy

A Young Lady Before Her Times

was a time of a special interest in the religious m<
the East. Ram Mohan Roy in 1830 had founded
association known as the Brahmo Samaj to purify Hinduism of
what he declared to be its popular later errors and to establish
a monotheistic worship. A generation later Keshub Chunder Sen
had set out to carry this movement forward to abandonment of
marks of caste distinction and other bad customs, such as child
marriage, associated with Hinduism; he became the leader of the
New or Progressive Brahmo Samaj. In Britain the Unitarians
above all felt themselves to be peculiarly close to these Indian
reformers. In the eighteen-sixties and seventies, birds of very
different religious feathers did their best to flock together. Keshub
Chunder Sen in 1866 had given to many the impression that he
was about to embrace Christianity. When he visited England in
1870, he was welcomed by religious leaders of many denomina¬
tions, but with special warmth by the Unitarians; he made to
packed audiences a series of eloquent speeches.

Annette on her continental tour was out of England for the
first part of Mr. Sen’s English visit, but was by no means out of
touch with his activities. Even in Switzerland she got hold of his
scheme for the formation of a spiritual association of all and
sundry; she copied it out and sent it to Miss Anna Swanwick in
another part of Switzerland, seeking that lady’s support.

Miss Swanwick was a good deal older and less hopeful than
Annette; she feared that differences of dogmatic opinion would
prove serious obstacles to the working of the proposed association.
In this no doubt she was right. Mr. Sen in his final meeting felt
further from his English friends, not nearer to them. Western
and Eastern religious thought were not to be fused.

But there was another theme in Mr. Sen’s speeches which for
Annette had more practical importance. He dealt not only with
religion but also with the position of women in India. He made
a call on women in England to come out to India to help their
Indian sisters, by giving them education without trying to change
their religion. Towards the end of his tour, on August i, 1870,
he took the chair at a meeting of the Victoria Discussion Society
when a Miss Wallington read a paper on an eternal subject:
“Women as they are supposed to be and women as they are.”
But the event of the evening was the speech that followed from

WNISTff

India Called Them

as Chairman:

i glad you have given me the opportunity of addressing
you, for this is a ladies’ society. I want your help. I have addressed
meetings of men in various parts of the country and have besought
them as humbly as I possibly could to help India. I now have the
honour to make an urgent yet humble appeal to you English¬
women—I may say English sisters. I sincerely and earnestly call
upon you to do all in your power to effect the elevation of the
Hindu women. I dare say many of you have read in books in
what way Hindu women may be helped by you. The best way in
which that help can be given is for some of you to embark on
the grand and noble enterprise of going over personally to that
great country. ... At the present moment a thousand Hindu
houses are open to receive and welcome English governesses—
well-trained, accomplished English ladies, capable of doing good
to their Indian sisters, both by instruction and personal example.
And what sort of education do we expect and wish from you ?
An unsectarian, liberal, sound, useful education. (Cheers.) An
education that will not patronise any particular church, that will
not be subservient or subordinated to the views of any particular
religious community, an education free, and liberal, and compre¬
hensive in its character, an education calculated to make Indian
women good wives, mothers, sisters and daughters. Such an
education we want for our ladies, and are there no feeling hearts
in England capable of responding to this exhortation and
invitation? I speak to you not for one, not for fifty, but for
millions of Indian sisters, whose lamentations and wails penetrate
the skies, and seem to come over to England at the present
moment to stir up the hearts of their English sisters. Shall we
hear those cries and lamentations with hearts of steel? Shall we
not weep over this scene of spiritual and intellectual desolation
that spreads far and wide over that once glorious country? Will
you not come forward and say—“We will part with our sub¬
stance if we cannot go over personally, but we who can go over
personally shall go, for our Heavenly Father calls upon us to
undertake this noble mission”? A noble mission decidedly it is,
10 go across the ocean and scale hills and mountains, to surmount
difficulties and to risk health, in order to wipe the tears from the
eyes of weeping Indian isters, to resale them from widowhood,
from the evil customs of premature marriage, and to induce them
to feel that there is something higher and nobler for them to
aspire to.

MINIS/*

A Young Lady Before Her Times

business this evening is to tell you, that in her disc
bids you come over and help her. Governments are tryin
:tfdo what improved legislation can to crush and exterminate the
bad customs. Philanthropic men have gone there to promote a
liberal education amongst the males, and now if Englishwomen
are ready to vindicate what are called women’s rights in England,
if they have to make platform speeches, let them show that their
views and sympathies are not confined within die limits of this
small island. . . . When you have given us the help for which
I ask, England will have done her duty towards India, and the
people of both lands will assist each other in pressing forward
to the goal which we all desire to keep in view. (Cheers.) 1

The spirit of this invitation was not unlike diat which a little
earlier was addressed from another Eastern country to an English¬
woman, by die King of Siam to Mrs. Anna Leonownens to come
as governess to his children.

We hope diat in doing your education on us and on our
children . . . you will do your best endeavour for knowledge
of English language, science and literature, and not for con¬
version to Christianity; as the followers of Buddha are mostly
aware of the powerfulness of truth and virtue as well as the
followers of Christ, and are desirous to have facility of English
Language and literature, more than new religions. 2

The rhetoric of Keshub Chunder Sen in making a similar
invitation was all his own and had an electric influence on die
Victorian ladies. Miss Emily Faithfull announced diat if anyone
wished to respond to the eloquent appeal which the Chairman
had made she w'ould be only too happy to receive communications.

Annette was not present on this occasion, but she was in
London and she heard all about it. She took every remaining
chance of seeing and hearing Mr. Sen: at Stanford Street—on
August 14th—on die day after he had enjoyed a private interview
whh Queen Victoria, and at his farewell meeting on Septem¬
ber 12th, when he declared himself more Indian than ever. The
day after she busied herself in taking his bust to be packed.
Annette was in Keshub’s net.

1 This and other addresses are printed in Keshub Chunder Sen’s English Visits , edited
by Sophia Dobson Collet and published in 1871. Miss Collet was one of Annette’s early
correspondents.

3 Preface to The English Governess at the Siamese Court , by Anna Harriettj Leon
ownens (Trtibner, 1870.)

India Called Them

(st

bkc^Lj

she did not act hurriedly. She went back to Stourbri ^
x!j^.andTelt that this was the place where she had friends. But there
was no home there. She came to London and early in 1871 began
regular teaching at the Working Women’s College. She liked
that well, but it did not fill her life. She went on seeing more
visitors from India, among others Mr. Monmohan Ghose, Mr.
Banerjee and Mr. Krishna Govinda Gupta.

Her decision to visit India, though it sprang from Keshub’s
appeal, did not depend on that alone, but on what she learned
through these other friends from the East. Just how she came to
that decision we have now no means of telling. There are prob¬
ably in most lives at highest two or three decisions which are
difficult as well as important. The important decisions are not
always difficult; decision to marry or not and whom to marry
is often so easy as to be inevitable, with every argument pointing
the same way. The difficult decisions are those where the argu¬
ments each way are evenly balanced. On July 13,1871, Annette’s
diary records: “Told F. of my wish to go to India.”

After her sister Fanny, one of the next people she told was her
continental chaperone, Mrs. Aubrey, whom she named a few
years later as one of the two people to whom she would go if ever
she wanted advice on any course of conduct. “Mrs. Aubrey has
a gift for looking at the questions brought to her as though they
were cases to be decided. She spares neither thought nor sympathy
for those she loves.”

Mrs. Aubrey certainly loved Annette. As the letters from Mrs.
Reid show, Annette was the sort of young woman who makes
friends readily with older women; this was a quality which on
the way to India prepared the way for decisive change in her life.
Mrs. Aubrey’s reaction to Annette’s project was one of violent
and sustained remonstrance. She wrote to her as “a mother to
a darling daughter”:

29/11/71-

Remember Annette, you are not strong. Never was there a more
willing and indomitable spirit than yours, but physically you are
nothing like as strong as Meta, and diough you bore the cold very
well, yet well do I remember how in Rome, in Leghorn, in Genoa
and Milan, you succumbed to the great heat, and what was that to

MIN IST/f,,

William Akroyd of Stourbridge

Annette Akroyd at 22

\%\ A Young Lady Before Her Times

te lit of India! You little soft white-skinned wee woman, tak
ourself and do not do this thing rashly.

But Annette on this occasion was not seeking Mrs. Aubrey’s
advice on a proposed course of conduct. Her mind was made up
and none of the three people—father, husband, son—who could
change her mind were in her life at that moment.

The die was cast, but Annette did not rush her fences. She
prepared for her mission with characteristic thoroughness. In the
autumn of 1871 she began lessons in Bengali, arranged by Mr.
Gupta. As she was to teach school girls, she took also a course for
governesses at the Home and Colonial College. All the while she
went on teaching an English class at the Working Women’s
College, where her sister Fanny had become Lady Superintendent,
and where her brother-in-law to be, James Mowatt,was a volunteer
teacher and member of the Committee. And all the while she
went on reading.

At last the season for travel to India came and one day in
October 1872 Annette embarked at Gravesend in the steamer
Xantho . She met for die first time as her cabin companion Mrs.
Goldie, going out to visit a newly married daughter in Bengal.
She embarked amid the anxious lamentations of Mrs. Aubrey,
and with letters of,blessing and admiration from like-minded-
friends such as Miss Buss, Miss Frances Power Cobbe and Mrs.
Bessie Parkes Belloc. 1 She was just under 30.

Annette went through the Suez Canal; it had been opened
three years before and she noted that the ship’s fee for passage
was £785. She made friends with her cabin companion, and heard,
without listening much, of the charms of Mrs. Goldie’s son-in-
law, Henry Beveridge, in Bengal. She noted the fortunate dispen¬
sation of Providence which had made both Mrs. Goldie and
herself so short that they could find room in the tiny bunks
which had fallen to their lot. She played a great deal of chess.
She went to service on Sunday, apparently for the sole purpose
of helping the singing. She read Shelley to a lovely moon in the

1 Annette had known Bessie Rayner Parkes before marriage, and later was to occupy
her house at it, Great College Street. Annett 's book of photographs includes one of
Mrs. Belloc with the infant Marie (Mrs. Belloc I 'wndes). Bessie Rayner Parkes was the
daughter of Joseph Parkes, the well-known radical leader in Birmingham, and grand¬
daughter of Dr. Priestley. William Akroyd no doubt knew Joseph Parkes, directly and
through his Jacobin father in his Birmingham days, and the friendship continued;
a letter from Mrs. Belloc to Annette speaks of“yourkipd good clever Papa” at Stourbridge.

misr/f

India Called Them

mean. Whether there was any other listener ^
What is certain is that if Annette had desired at once to
^e up her state of single blessedness she could have done so. But,
as she wrote to Fanny, her admirer on the Xantho was twenty
years older than she, and six weeks* shipboard acquaintance was
not in her view sufficient basis for life partnership. Anyhow Miss
Akroyd’s mind was fixed on her mission to India, and Miss Akroyd
was one who valued having her own way in life. She was not one
lightly to give up independence.

She reached Calcutta in the middle of December, two days after
she had reached the age of 30. She was met by her Indian friends,
Mr. and Mrs. Monmohan Ghose and Mr. Gupta, and went to
live with the former; they most hospitably placed three rooms at
her disposal. She noted duly her first impressions in the Record
which she made of her early time in India:

The first features of Calcutta life which have struck me as most
curious are the crows, the jackals and the difficulty of taking exercise!
This is because I have never realised all these things before, while the
servants, the semi and demi-semi clothed people are quite familiar to
my imagination.

Annette’s first surroundings in Calcutta were Indian, not English.
So were her sympathies.

25/3/73•

A tamasha at Belvedere; many Bengalis and a most pleasant evening
and altogether picturesque; except for the lurking difficulties in my
mind about how far I dare to be polite to my Indian friends!

27/3/73

To Government House, a large party—very nice music—but!
This is a country where there is almost always a but! and this but!
is of painful dimensions. Day after day as I go into Anglo-Indian
society, I am convinced of the falseness of our position here. All
allowances made for some little insular prejudice, for we cannot at
once get over this narrowness—there is a cruel amount of difficulty
and awkwardness between the races. What wonder! I sit among a
group of ladies and hear one lisping to a gendeman her complaint
that the “natives” come so early, sit downstairs in the ante-room,
with their feet on the sofa, i.e. oriental fashion, as if they were at
home—(query? who has most right to feel that, the people who pay
for the house or those who make them pay?) I hear at Belvedere of

•Sl

A Young Lady Before Her Times

Jk> say “Ah! no! I never spoke to a native,” when asfi
/entertain and talk to some of the numerous Indians present^"
of another who said “Let us sit on the verandah to get out of the
natives.” If this were said of men who have no refined ideas, who
were what the Tippoo Sahib princes look, I should not wonder, but
when all are classed together—men of learning from whom these
empty-hearted women might learn much, and men of proud feelings—

I get a sickening heartache and terror of life here. How these sweet
and feminine souls, whose sympathy is so tender and sensibilities so
acute can be so destitute not only of humanity but of simple courtesy
and consideration for the feelings of others, is a problem I cannot
pretend to solve.

Coraggio, we will have a society and a social life also, and will try
to create social enjoyment among ourselves which will give some
compensation.

In this spirit, she got to work upon her mission. One of her
first callers was naturally K. C. S.—Keshub Chunder Sen—to
whom she put the question, “What can I do which will be most
helpful?” It had been his speeches in England that had fired her
imagination; the first announcement of her coming had been
hailed as a triumph for his Indian Reform Association. But there
were rifts between Indian Reformers, as there often are between
reformers in every field. Some of these rifts became apparent even
before Annette left England. She came out untrammelled by"
bonds to any special body. That meant also that she came without
anybody pledged to support her. She found everything to make.

With K. C. S. there soon came a parting. He joined the Com¬
mittee that was formed to launch her school, but in a few months
he resigned; newspapers under his control made violent attacks on
Miss Akroyd both before and after the resignation; other papers
joined in and there was a mel£e of cross correspondence. There
is no need to enter into this battle of long ago. Annette almost
from her first days in India lost faith in K. C. S. and no doubt
she showed this. She met Mrs. Sen and was shocked to find that
the wife of the great apostle of women's emancipation in India
was ignorant of English and covered by a barbaric display of
jewels, playing with them, in Annette's phrase, like a foolish
petted child in place of attempting rational converse; a similar
contrast between preaching and personal practice was noted later

8 9

MINISr^

India Called Them

r critics of K. C. S., when the reforming oppon^
arriage gave his daughter as a child to be wife to a*Boy
ajah. Annette was even more shocked by a school in which
K. C. S. was interested and by the clothing or absence of clothing
of the Indian who taught there; she made an instant note “that
in no place with which I am concerned shall any man appear in
the dress assumed by Mr. N. Bose/’ 1

Finally, Annette went to a public meeting addressed by K. C. S.
and recorded her experience as follows:

26/1/73.

At four I went with Durga Mohan Das to an open air meeting of
quite the lowest classes in the Bengalee quarter, to hear K. C. S. give
an address. There must have been 2,000 people, I guess, and almost
all men, indeed I do not think there were three women amongst the
crowd, and certainly I was the only lady. In consequence of the
unfrequent appearance of a woman the people looked at one with
profound amazement, and for the first time I realised how uncivilised
are their notions about women. I read it in their eyes, not so much in
the eyes of those who looked impertinently at me, for this is an
expression not unknown to civilisation! as in the blank wonder 'with
which most of them scrutinized me. . . . K. C. S. looked very
imposing, indeed a splendid figure in his white robes and with his
graceful and passionate gesture. He spoke of the general attributes of
Deity—then rested and then again spoke of practical reforms of life.
The people were very attentive and frequently applauded.

I could not but think, the difference between the two men not¬
withstanding, of Savonarola, and gave a prophetic thought at the
future of this man, whose tendencies are surely in a dangerous
direction, whose ascetic bias and whose doctrine of original sin will
surely land him some day—not in an ordeal of fire, but in an ordeal
of disrespect and ridicule. Even now the most educated Brahmos
hold aloof or remain with him only as helpers of the good of the
Church, which they desire not to diminish by disunion.

“For the first time I realized how uncivilized are their notions
about women.” This early experience of where women stood in

1 Annette in her early Indian days was not wholly reasonable about Indian dress.
She made another note at the same time about women: “I should urge the adoption of
petticoats with the preservation of the remaining upper part of die dress, a compromise
thus 1 eirw effected between indecency and de-nationalization and both secured against.”
Her sister Fanny, in England, to whom she expounded this project, was wiser and came
down on it heavily.

MiNisr^

A Young Lady Before Her Times

society had a profound and lasting effect on Anr
*he did not as a result sympathize any more with what
Jescribed as the Anglo-Indian attitude of most of her English
sisters. But she began to feel less in sympathy with the generality
of Indian men. And the emptiness of mind and life of most Indian
women was emphasized to her, each time that in these first years
she got away to English women friends to whom books and ideas
were as real as to herself. Bedford College was not a good
preparation for India.

K. C. S. left Annette’s Committee, but the Committee went
on. Annette had firm Indian friends, in her hosts the Monmohan
Ghoses (though she was to be warned against them later as too
completely Anglicized), in Durga Mohan Das, a distinguished
pleader, in the bountiful Maharani Surnamoye. She found towers
of unfailing support in Mr. Justice Phear and Mrs. Phear. But
it was all slow uphill work, first to raise enough money to make
a start; then to make sure of pupils and teachers; then to find and
furnish a house suitable for the school. The house chosen finally
in Baniapookur Lane was at least the third that Annette had
inspected.

Quite apart from the unpleasantness with K. C. S., Annette
found her mission to Indian women becoming a drab aflair of
spoons and forks and filters, and drunken landlords and abscond¬
ing servants:

March 1873.

Early came Dr. Sarna with good practical suggestions about the
house and with a dreadful energy of argument about spoons and
forks; he left my brain as though rasped by a file.

May.

Committee meeting at which we decided that we must have another
hundred rupees per month before commencing.

June.

What a time of misery have I passed.

October.

Today to meet our landlord by appointment at 22, Baniapookur
Lane, and for the third time he did not come. Mrs. Knight had gone
with me, as Mr. Ghose and Durga M. Babu were both away and I
am so unused to these men’s peculiar ways. We then went to the

9 1

India Called Them

Vffs house, by a dreadful lane full of ditches and right- _

js, and found him quite intoxicated. However we talked to.

ie talked about my ‘Tdble object.” This however did not prevent
us from expressing our opinion as to the state of the house, which is
painted and whitewashed on one side only—not the back of course—
and where the godowns are untouched, though we are going to pay
R. io per month extra in consideration of the repairs. Certainly one
wants courage here! I hear that the only plan is to go in and stop the
rent till the repairs are done.

November.

Still wuthout any teachers and singlehanded.

January 1874.

Not able to get out as there was no one to leave in charge.

April.

All the servants absented themselves in the evening.

Still, the school did get established: the Hindu Mahila Bidyalaya
(Hindu Ladies School)—on November 18, 1873. That was the
day on which Annette, having at last collected a Pundit and a
second Mistress to share her labours, moved into 22, Baniapookur
Lane, with some dozen pupils.

At home in East Worcestershire her local paper—the Brierley
Hill Advertiser —was able to rejoice:

MISS A. AKROYD IN INDIA

Among the most hopeful plans for the social regeneration of India
is that for the education of the women of India. An experimental
effort in this direction has been projected by Miss Annette Akroyd
(daughter of the late Mr. William Akroyd, of Parkfield, Stourbridge),
who is generously throwing herself into the work with all the
characteristic energy and self-devotedness of her father, and with a
like faith in the elevating influences of education. . . .

Miss Akroyd has formed a school for Hindoo ladies. The general
committee is strong in both European and native members of standing.
The object of the school “is to give thorough instruction on principles
of the strictest theological neutrality. The subjects taught are arith¬
metic, physical and political geography, the elements of physical
science, Bengali and English reading, grammar and writing, history,
and needlework.” Great attention is to be given to the training of the
pupils in practical housework, and to the formation of orderly and
industrious habits.

MIN IST#

A Young Lady Before Her Times

■Sl

tte’s rejoicing must have been more sober tin
‘ Jrd’s. But she stuck it out through the heat of two years in
Calcutta, on her first visit to India.

She sent her news regularly to her sister banny in London
and received news in return. The Working Women’s College
went through a crisis which led to departure from it both of
Fanny as Lady Superintendent and of James Mowatt as member
of the committee. The crisis in the Working Women’s College
was of a familiar type. It seemed to one section of the committee
that they would beTnore successful in attracting women students
if they did not exclude men students. The co-educationists had
their way, and Fanny and James, who had stood for women only,
both left the college. But as they agreed to go together and get
married, all was well for them. James, the son of rich conventional
and doting parents, was liberal and unselfish in spite of it; a
typical member of the Reform Club of those days; a barrister
who had no need for briefs. Annette welcomed him as a brother-
in-law with open arms.

In Calcutta, even in these two years, every now and again she
escaped to friends, once to an “idle week of French novels and
delightful society and drives” with the Hobhouses; once to the
hill-station of Naini Tal with the Phears.

We were very idle and came to the end of our literature. I read
Sophocles, Aeschylus, Browning’s Alcestis, Prosper Merimees’
Lettres it une Inconnue, Trollope’s Belton Estate.

These were fleeting interludes. She was fixed to Baniapookur
Lane. There, after two years’ struggle, she was with fourteen
pupils when her year of fate, 1875, began.

MIN ISTfy

I am nothing if not impulsive.

Henry to Annette, March 13, 1875.

It was a curious chance which married us, was it not?
Sceptics in many things we had somehow an increasing
faith in one another.

Annette to Henry, October 15, 1879.

misty

ACT III OF 1872

H ENRY BEVERIDGE with his Indian sympathies, his
love of learning and his breach with established religion
was a predestined supporter of Miss Akroyd’s school. She
had already a point of contact with him; the Mr. Gupta who had
taught her Bengali in London was the Krishna Govinda Gupta
whom Henry had befriended as a child wishing to see a procession,
and who soon after Henry’s return to Barisal was sent there as a
junior civilian. Annette might have met Henry even if she had
not shared a cabin with Mrs. Goldie on the Xatitho. But dirough
Mrs. Goldie she met him at once, at a moment when his world
was empty. She enlisted him in her crusade. She knew and shared
his attitude on Indian problems.

On the day after their first meeting she recorded a tale of Mr.
Beveridge told her by an Indian friend, of how the Europeans
had placed constables on a pier at Barisal to prevent natives from
walking on it on a particular occasion; of how, when later a bill
for repairs to the bridge came before the town council, a native
gentleman had protested, and Mr. Beveridge as Chairman had
supported the protest; of how after a great deal of angry talk,
the English judge had accepted the view of Mr. Beveridge
that if the Europeans wanted to keep the pier for themselves
they ought themselves to pay for its repairs.

Mr. Beveridge, with a mother, brother and sister to support at
home, had certainly no money to spare. But he became one of
the larger donors — with Rs. 10 0 —in the first list of sup¬
porters of Miss Akroyd’s school, and later he promised a regular
subscription of ten rupees a month. He was stationed six days’
journey from Calcutta and seldom came there, but he joined the
Managing Committee of the school; there can be little doubt
that he enlisted yet another member of the committee, Wilfred
Heeley, the great friend to whom he attributed the formation of
his opinions on matters of religion. Mr. Beveridge began also
very soon to write to Miss Akroyd about her project.

misT/f

India Called Them

/ *, Barisal, 13 lj

ear Miss Akroyd,

I have not yet heard from Mrs. Goldie and I have not had an
opportunity of speaking to many natives about the Boarding School.
- therefore only write a few lines to say that I have not forgotten the
subject and that I will do what I can to assist in the matter. I arrived
here on Saturday last and have ever since been very busy with District
tvork. I called on Mrs. Gupta yesterda}' and found her as quiet as
ever. They have bought a pony carriage which I hope will add some¬
thing to their comfort.

I am very quiet here and feel very lonely when coming back after
cutcherry to this big, dreary house when there is no longer anyone
to meet me. However, I feel that I was right to return and will trust
to time to soften my sorrow. Mr. Heeley was here for a day or two,
but has now gone to Noakhali. He seems very uncertain as to Mr.
CampbelPs views about education, and I diink you are right in pro¬
ceeding gradually with your scheme and in cultivating patience.
There is no doubt that the idea of a Boarding-School is both novel
and good and I am confident that you will be successful in time. The
real difficulty is the money one, and this can only be overcome by
donations in the first instance. Eventually the school may pay its
way, but there must be a heavy outlay at first. The besetting sin of
Bengalees is that they will think and talk and talk and think for ever
but that they will not act. But then that is the very reason we are
here, for if Bengalees could only act half as w'ell as they talk there
would be no need for us westerns to rule over them. We must, there¬
fore, take them as we find them and do our best for them.

I hope you enjoyed your evening at the Sailors’ Home. Calcutta is
a terribly bad place for sailors, and indeed I begin to think that every
European in India is more or less in a false position. That is I think
as regards his or her happiness, unless the higher blessedness of feeling
that one is doing good comes in as a compensation. The longer you
stay in the country the more you will feel that at heart the natives
fear and d.'slike us and that they look with suspicion on all our schemes
even v hen they really are for their benefit. You will feel too that their
dislike and distrust of us are reasonable and that it will be long before
they are removed or even mitigated. Not all the bells in all our
churches will ring out the darkness of the land nor ring in the common
love of good.

The bells that will do that have yet to be cast and the voice of their
chimes will not be heard by us. I am not writing to discourage you
and I hope that you w ill not think I am taking a desponding view of

MIN/Sr^

Act III of 1832

§L

krprise. I believe tliat you will do good and you are ^
ily on the right track. But I cannot help feeling a little melan
choly just now, though at the same time T do not abate one jot of hope.

Kindly remember me to Mr. and Mrs. Ghose and with kind regards
to yourself,

Believe me,

Yours sincerely,

H. Beveridge.

2 / 4 / 73 *

... I have delayed writing you until pay-day in order that I
might send you my contribution. I now enclose the first half of a
note for Rs. 100 and will send you the other half on hearing from
you. I am glad to hear that your prospects of boarders are so good.
There has been no meeting in Barisal about your school, and I am
afraid no pupils will come from here. Some persons are trying to
establish a girls’ school in this place but I have not heard that they
have had any success yet. A few subscriptions might be collected here
but the amount would be but small and it would take time to get them
in. I think your school must be fairly started before they will come
forward.

I had a letter from Mrs. Goldie from Aden. Poor lady, she is
evidently very dull and lonely and is I am afraid feeling the bitterness
of her loss more than ever. I am going off to-morrow morning into
the District and will probably remain out for a fortnight or three
weeks. I do not like to stay in this house and I have more time to
myself when away from Head-quarters. . . .

i his method of sending money to Annette, by half a bank¬
note in one envelope followed by the other half later, was one
vdiich Henry was to use often in later years. The loss of Mrs.
Goldie s for which he expressed his sympathy was the loss to
Henry of his own girl-wife and baby.

24/5/73*

• • • I have been a good while in answering your last letter for I
have been very busy with annual reports. I have also been engaged
in a grand passage of arms with my Judge arising out of that singular
case which I mentioned to you. The fudge could not or would not
see that the men were innocent and would neither release them nor
report for their release. So I took the matter into my own hands and
provisionally discharged them, for which I have very properly been

MIN IST/f

India Called Them

by Govt. The case is now before the High Court*
it will end in the men’s being released.

See you have broken with Keshub Chunder Sen. I expect lie is
too fluent a speaker to be a great doer. I am glad to see that your
Boarding School is being taken notice of in the papers and I hope
that things are going on favourably. There are always lions in the way
of doing anything good, and the British lion is perhaps the worst of
all such beasts for he sits with his tail spread right across the road and
refuses to budge.

The “singular case” referred to was described at length later
by Henry in an Appendix to his History of Bakarganj. In the
course of a dispute about the division of sesame seeds, a peasant
—one Jabar Ula—had been beaten up by two of his neighbours;
his widow and mother gave a circumstantial account of how,
after lying insensible for two days, he had died, and how, to
conceal the evidence, his assailants had broken into his house
and carried away the corpse. The assailants under investigation
confessed the truth of the widow’s account, adding the corro¬
borative detail that they had rowed the body out in a small
rowing boat and flung it into the middle of the Meghna river, at
that point two or three miles wide. They were naturally com¬
mitted for trial, but before the trial came on they changed their
minds, withdrew their confession and declared that Jabar Ula
was alive. In the trial itself, on the advice of their counsel, they
changed agaift, acknowledged the truth of their original confess¬
ion, pleaded guilty but pleaded provocation; Jabar Ula was
declared, in the course of the sesame seed dispute, to have
twitched her upper garment off their sister. The judge at the trial
took a lenient view: as the body could not be found, he acquitted
of murder, but sent the wo men to prison for six months on
account of assault, and another six months for concealment of
evidence by throwing the body into the river. The men accepted
the sentence without appeal and went to jail. When they had
been there seven or eight months Jabar Ula appeared alive and
well in another village, and, being recognized, added his share of
unconvincing corroborative detail, of how he had awaked from
insensibility after his beating to find himself lying on the river
bank with a jackal gnawing him, and had fled and hidden in fear
of a further assault. The general and no doubt right opinion was

Ml Nt$Tff

Act III of i 8 yz

ar Ula had been seeking revenge for his thrash^
his assailants accused of his murder,
o this account of Jabar Ula’s case Henry, who had been the
magistrate at the first investigation and confession, though not
the judge in the trial, added a note of his own action.

It seems proper to add that I was so convinced of the innocence
of the prisoners in this case that I took upon myself to release them
in anticipation of the orders of Government. For this irregularity I
was deservedly censured, and three Judges of the High Court after¬
wards decided that there was no ground to interfere with the original
conviction. However the prisoners were not represented before the
High Court and there is no doubt that the general opinion in the
district is that Jabar Ula never was flung into the river.

I he story of Jabar Ula is typical of many things: of the sandy
skeins of lies from which it was Henry’s task for thirty-five years
to try to weave justice in Bengal, and of Henry’s own attitude to
his task and to authority.

Miss Akroyd, as this letter shows, was getting into troubles
on her own account, and Henry offered to help her. The idea
expressed by him in his next letter that he had learned to be
diplomatic, is like Colonel Newcome’s idea that he knew the
ways of the world.

Barisal, 9/6/73.

I have no doubt that your experiences of the Brahmos have
keen painful ones. I have not seen any of the correspondence except
your first letters as my Englishman does not follow me into the
Mofussil. I fancy Keshub is a good man but the leader of a party is
always to a certain extent its slave. I begin to doubt the efficiency of
ail y religion or form of thought however pure to alter private
characters or national characteristics. Truth and straightforwardness
are not Oriental virtues and I fancy there will always be a secret
preference in the Bengali mind for the milder virtu.es such as patience,
and charity (alms-giving). They probably admire St. John more
*han St. Paul or the somewhat brusque St. Peter. The great Ram
Mohun Rai, they tell me, took bribes when he w r as in Govt, employ
a nd had a Mahomedan mistress. Of course you will not find any
notI ’ce of this in Miss Carpenter’s “Last Days” and I do not suppose
that these vices clung to him through life nor do I doubt that he
really was a great and good man. However, I venture to suggest to

MIN ISTf?

India Called Them

a matter of policy that you should keep in as far as poj^J^^
^ .eshub and his party. He has great influence and we have an
>stolic precept for being all things to all men.

Perhaps this may shock you and you may think that I have lived
so long among Bengalis that I have learned their ways. Perhaps I
have, for one can't be a Magistrate for a number of years without
learning, or at least trying to learn to be diplomatic. I am very glad
that you are likely to begin work soon and wish you every success.

I have heard nothing more of my case but I presume that something
will come of it soon. I do not pretend to say that censure from Govt,
is not unpleasant and I really have a high opinion of Sir George
CampbeH’s ability and desire to do good. I have, therefore, some
reverence for Ills blame in this case and quite admit that I deserved
censure and that another Lieutenant-Governor might not have let me
off so easily. At the same time I won’t say that I was wrong or that
I would not do something of die same kind again if I felt called upon
to do it. It may be a paradox but there are some occasions when you
do right and yet deserve punishment. For instance a man whose child
is starving is right to steal for it if he cannot get food for it otherwise.
But the judge is also right in punishing him for the theft. So also a
soldier should perhaps not fight in a war which he believes to be
unjust, but his Commander is also right in shooting him for dis¬
obeying orders.

28/11/73.

I see among the list of unclaimed letters at the Calcutta post office
that there is one addressed to you. You had better send for it.

I have been thinking somewhat about your breach with Keshub
Chunder Sen. I think that if it could be made up it would be advan¬
tageous to your school and if you like I will write a letter to the
Indian Mirror or even to the great Keshub himself recommending an
adjustment of the difference. I hope you will excuse me for saying this.
My only motives are admiration of your project and a desire that it
should succeed. I believe that Keshub Babu really is a good man and
it he is so he will respond to an appeal for reunion.

May I venture to say that there is a danger in your being too much
id; mified with the anglicised Bengalees. What I said about the Bengali
character applies to them as well as to the Brahmins. I have nothing
to say against Mr. and Mrs. Chose, who were kind to me, but I do
not believe that they represent the best section of young Bengal or
that Bengal will eventually follow in the track that they are going.
Doorga Mohan is, I believe, a thoroughly honest man, and he is not
T think an anglicised Bengali. We have not got to understand the

100

§L

Act III of 1832

yet. Like, I believe, the Italians, they are both more
: rude and plain-spoken than we are.

Sope I have not said too much. I haven’t written without considera¬
tion but still I am aware that I do not know the outs and ins of the
controversy and that I may be altogether wrong in my views. The
gist of what I want to say is that I hope you will get the benefit of
the counsel of some calm and philanthropic Englishman, such for
instance as my friend Mr. Heeley or probably Mr. Phear (I say
probably because I know very little of him), and that you will not
take the views unreservedly of any Bengalee, however intelligent and
honest. Mr. Ghose is no doubt an honest man but he has cast in his
lot with the anglicised Bengalees and may therefore unintentionally
mislead you. I do not suppose he has ever made such sacrifices for his
convictions as Keshub Babu has. If I were to write to the Indian
Mirror I would, of course, sign my name. I rather dread the task,
however, and will not undertake it unless you think it might do good.
I don’t want you to carry the olive branch to Keshub. Both as a lady
and an Englishwoman and also as one who has made sacrifices you
are entitled to be met half way. But I think without any sacrifice of
dignity you might go the other half.

If this letter makes you angry do not mind telling me so, for I am
very likely all wrong in my notion. . . .

Miss Akroyd apparently did not welcome mediation with
Keshub or open championship by Henry. But he supported her
at one stage of her controversy by a letter to the Press signed
I. C. S. and he kept on writing to her once a mondi or so—
promising a subscription, congratulating her on the opening of
the school, suggesting that it be called the Akroyd School,
saying something about himself and his opinions.

9/12/73.

... It is drawing near to Christmas time but that is always a sad
season in India and is doubly so to me now. I have got to the end of
my religious doubts and fears for a while at least and have struck
what Bret Harte calls the bed-rock. It is hard this same bed-rock, but
1 welcome it for that, for I was wearied and overworn with the grasping
of shadows and the sinking in boggy mud.

It is not Comtism altogether for the great Comte is a little too
French for me, but it is Humanity talcing the place of Divinity and
an abandonment of everything that seems non-natural. IIow long
this will remain I know not, but if it does remain it may in time

JOI

India Called Them

philosophic calm and the wise indifference of the w:
mg that is unknown and unknowable.

•@L

The answers to these letters, if any, have been lost, and they
were not all answered. Miss Akroyd was getting absorbed in the
dusty struggle of her school. Henry settled down to his solitary
round and his History of Bakarganj . For more than a year he
stopped writing to Miss Akroyd, but he kept on rather sadly to
his mother. His brother Allie who, after the Abyssinian campaign,
had still been abroad when Henry went to claim Jeanie, had

returned home, and in June 1873 married a cousin from the rich
branch of the House of B. in Dunfermline—Elizabeth or Libbie,
daughter of Erskine the first.

Barisal, 6/5/73.

I am glad to see that Mrs. Goldie has arrived safely. Poor lady, it
must have been a sore trial to her to return home with such melancholy
tidings. . . .

You do not give me any news of Allie’s marriage. When is it
coming off?

13/6/73.

I often see Scotland again now in my waking visions and can say
with your friend Horace

An me ludit amabilis
Insania audire et videor pias
Errare per lucos, amoenae
Quas et aquae subeunt et aurae

Pretty well this for an adust Police-Magistrate who has to jabber
Bengali six or seven hours every day with the artful dodgers of Barisal.
What of Allie’s marriage? . . .

10/7/73.

The story of our lives from week to week does not contain much
that is new. . . .

Teli David I have bought Conington’s Virgil. He points out that
the Eclogues are altogether imitations and that the scenery is entirely
Sicilian and not Mantuan. I might have remembered that myself for
Mantua lies in a plain and has no damnosa rupes, etc. The Georgies
are more true to nature and there is a flatness about them which
corresponds to the plains which they describe. I see that they say
that Virgil’s real name was Vergil.

102

MIN/S/ty,

<SL

Act III of 1832

der how the marriage has gone off. . . .

Perozpur, 26/4/74.

I have come down here for a couple of days to inspect the Sub-
Division and to get a change from Barisal. . . . Many thanks for
Principal Caird’s sermons. I have been reading the Thoughts of
Marcus Antoninus (Bohn Translation). Some of these are very good
but the Translator is hardly correct when he says that they contain
no traces of stoical arrogance or self-sufficiency. For instance, Marcus
Antoninus bids you to be always the same whether well or ill which
is simply an impossibility.

Barisal, 24/7/74.

I was glad to hear from you and Maggie last week. I like your
sentiment about a Scottish heart and a Scottish spirit and hope to
shew myself a chip of the old block. Unfortunately life is so monoton¬
ous, there is so little opportunity for dash and enterprise that one
almost wishes for an earthquake or another mutiny just to show what
one could do.

I am going off to Dacca next month to make my bow to the Viceroy
who is to hold a Darbar there. I shall be glad to have an opportunity
of showing my respect for Lord Northbrook, but I don’t care for the
illuminations, etc.

I am glad to hear that you were over at the Baptism. The family
is now perpetuated I hope.

The baptism was that of his brother Allied first boy. Henry,
the most unselfish of human-kind, was able in his solitude and
misery to be glad of this, as in another letter he had dwelt on
Mrs. Goldie’s loss rather than his own.

By the end of 1874 Henry became entitled to furlough again.
He planned to go home, and as that would take him by Calcutta
he had an excuse for writing to Miss Akroyd.

Barisal,

Christmas Day, 1874.

I wrote to you a long while ago but I suppose you have bee n busy
for I never got any reply. I was reminded of you yesterday by sedng
your photograph in Mr. Gupta’s album. . . .

I have applied for furlough but have not got it yet, and even if I
do I do not intend going home for two or three months yet. I am
trying to write a history of Bakarganj and must therefore stay on
here and collect materials. I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you

103

India Called Them

bme down to Calcutta. I was down in Calcutta for a
ast but as I had no fitting costume I did not call on you.

Henry’s visit to Calcutta seems to have been delayed till
February. On Valentine’s Day, 1875, appears again—for the
fourth time—in Annette’s diary:

Neuralgia, very unwell. Mr. Beveridge called to see me.
He appears for the fifth time on March 3 :

Mr. Beveridge came and visited the school.

Eight days later, on Thursday, March n, he came into the open:

March nth. Mr. Beveridge spent tiffin widi me and wrote asking
to call at the same hour next day but arrived at seven in the morning
and also came in the evening for a drive.

He had planned to make his proposal on the Friday afternoon,
but found that he could not wait. So Annette was called from her
breakfast and her newspaper to hear him. She did not accept him
at once. On the Friday of the drive and the day after, Henry
wrote two more letters to Annette, addressing her for the last
time as Miss Akroyd. He was staying with a friend, Mrs. Stuart,
in 4, Kyd Street. She was at her school in Baniapookur Lane.

4, Kyd Street, Friday [12/3/75].

My dearest Miss Akroyd,

Perhaps you would like to see my Album so I beg leave to send
it to you. I feel how very unworthy I am of you and I know that I
have many faults which you v. ill not be long in discovering. Indeed
I hope you have discovered them already, for then I shall know that
you like me even with my faults.

I try to be honest and truthful but perhaps this makes me sometimes
hard and severe, and I have to boot a lot of wayward impulses which
greatly require guiding. I trust that you will give me this guiding
and that my love and esteem for you may make me better. I am not
at all disappointed at your not saying Yes to me and I am very grateful
for your not having said No. I earnestly wish that you will not hurry
yourself and that you will take full time to make enquiries and to
consider the matter on every side, for I well know what a momentous
step marriage is. Be assured therefore that I will not press you to
give me an answer at once.

104

Act III of i8yz

clo eventually say Yes, you might come home in Jufc
ui^j^jnu then we could be married at home, and come out together
Yfext cold weather. Or I could come out again for you.

Yours affectionately,

H. Beveridge.

4 Kyd Street,

13 March 1875.

My dearest Miss Akroyd,

Many thanks for your land note. I want you exactly to under¬
stand my feeling and also your own and yet I feel it difficult to say
or write the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. When
my dear wife died I said to myself that I never would marry again
and I have often said so since both to myself ajid to my friends. I
found however as time went on that I really was not strong enough
to stand alone and that I ran the danger of making shipwTeck from
trying to carry on a resolution beyond my strength. Not, I think,
that I would be driven to dissipation but that I was getting rudderless
as it were, and found solitude insupportable and was becoming soured
and misanthropic. People have told me that no one can or ought to
marry a second wife until he has forgotten his first wife. I do not
believe this, and I must frankly say that if it be so I never can marry
again. I never can forget my lost Darling, nor can I ever feel to
another woman exactly as I felt and still feel towards her. She was
one of the purest and gentlest and loveliest of women and I felt for
her a protecting tenderness which I could not feel towards an equal
or a superior and which of course the latter would not require. As
I used to say to Jeannie sometimes when she would wish for a child,
I don t need one for you are my w r ife and daughter in one. My great
exemplar John Stuart Mill says that all marriages except between
persons of about equal age and equal knowledge are relics of
barbarism. I have often thought of this saying, and am convinced
that it is true and yet what I feel is that I am a barbarian and the
descendant of barbarians, and that perhaps I never can get quite rid
of my barbaric nature. Mill’s own experience also has somewhat
staggered me and has made me doubt if he too was not subject to
blindness and was not less calm and strong than he thought himself.
I am almost certain that he was under a delusion as regards Mrs.
Taylor and I cannot but think that his conduct and that of Mrs.
Taylor was morally wrong and destructive to society. He says Mrs.
Taylor had a sincere affection for her husband and that he was a most
honourable, brave and sincere man and that his only deficiency was a

105

India Called Them

(fiT

: hkjUU

itr^f literary and scientific tastes and aspirations, so that
^ fit companion for her. Surely this is heartless and priggish talk.
>ught not her affection for an honourable and brave man and the
father of her child to have prevented her from embittering his last
years (as a writer in Frazer s Magazine says she did) by withdrawing
herself from him and by consorting and travelling about and all but
living with another man? And I cannot but think that Mill’s love for
such a woman and his rhapsodies about her were—not perhaps a relic
of barbarism, but something worse because less excusable, namely a
proof of a certain amount of fatuity and a species of dotage. And what
seems to me to prove that Mill was subject to delusion in the matter
is his thinking that he could induce the world to believe that Mrs.

Taylor was Carlyle, Shelley, Mill, Comte, etc., all in one by his saying
that she was so. He tells us that one chief object in writing his auto¬
biography was to make known to the world his obligations to his
father and his wife. Now we believe what he says of his father because
we can read his father’s books and see his talents and virtues. But we
have no such confirmation in the case of Mrs. Taylor, and could not
Mill have had the common sense to see that when he told the world
about his wife’s wonderful qualities the world would only laugh at
him and her and say that he raved quite as badly and much less
attractively than any boy-lover ever did ? His book therefore has quite
failed of its main object and being a blunder must be pronounced a
proof of weakness. His step-daughter seems to have had more wit
than he for she has laid sacrilegious hands on his manuscript and
struck out some passages about herself. It is amusing to see how
clear-sighted he was about Comte. Comte was, he tells us, misled by
his admiration for his Pauline, but he never seems to have thought
that he could have a beam in his own eye.

To come back to ourselves, you may say that I should not have
spoken to you as I did and should have waited until I knew more of
you and had reflected more on the matter. Perhaps I should, but I
am nothing if not impulsive and besides I thought that it was better
to make some declaration before leaving India and while there was
yet some little time for personal intercourse. Letters are very 'well but
they do not supply the place of explanations made face to face.

T cannot hold out any promise of a brilliant future to you if you
mariy me. I don’t think I shall ever get much higher in the service
than I now am, and I shall always I fear be at daggers drawn with
some of my superiors and will always be looked upon as an unsafe
man. I have also a mother, a brother and a sister to support, and I
must devote a good deal of my income to charitable uses. I am also

106

Act III of 1832

id to stick to India and probably that most unpopular
stern Bengal. I therefore cannot promise you a lively or pleasant
st&trdn in the Mofussil though I do not think I am called upon to go
back to Barisal.

You see that as Tennyson calls it, it is but an imperfect gift I bring.
If you will accept it I shall be glad, but I would rather that you should
not accept it in ignorance of its imperfections. Do not therefore, I
repeat, hurry yourself in the matter. I can wait.

The steamer leaves on Tuesday morning and I believe we are to go
on board on Monday night after dinner. If there are any questions
which you wish to ask me about myself or my relations please do so.

Yours affectionately,

H. Beveridge.

Letters, as Henry said, are very well, but they do not supply
the place of explanations made face to face. Nor have they the
same effects. When he made his proposal, Henry was on the
point of sailing for home, with his passage booked. But having
sent his letter of the 13th by hand he followed it by a visit in
which rather less was said about Mrs. Taylor and rather more
about “ourselves.' * As the faithful recorder Annette noted later in
her diary, while sitting with Henry on the west coast of Scotland,
on the 13th March the answer to the question put to me on the
12th was taken for granted in the affirmative.” Hemy had
deceived himself in thinking that he could wait. The 13th of
March decided that Henry’s and Annette’s lives should join.

This was an unusual courtship between two unusual people.
Neither of them was any longer quite young—Henry 38,
Annette 32. Each had a strong character and obstinately held
opinions. They had met exactly five times before Henry declared
himself. Henry had in his mind his never-forgotten Jeanie.
Annette till then, as she wrote to him afterwards (and she was a
truthful person), had feelings which had made her look almost
contemptuously on all other opportunities of marriage. Her
mission to India, indeed, had come to be exhausting toil, which
lit no spreading flame. But marriage was not her only escape.

Annette always used to maintain that she had never felt for
Henry before marriage anything like the love that came later.
This is borne out by her letters. She was to write many love
letters to him, but they came after marriage. What she wrote to

107

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India Called Them

suitor seems curiously stilted when compared with
te then or she wrote later. She addressed him as “Most
impracticable of people.” Sometimes she did not address him at
all—sent him letters like minutes without opening or loving
subscription. She refused to go to a party widi him without a
chaperone. Six days after her engagement she begged not to
have to see Henry for a day or two.

I cannot at all realise with my brains what I have done in promising
to be your wife, and I am inclined to appeal to your tenderness for
me and find me two or three quiet days to put the notion into its
proper place among the realities of my existence.

One of Annette’s troubles was that at her school she was in
full-time fractious employment in a depressing climate.

I was very stupid last night in a cloud of neuralgia and quinine and
will not go out anywhere again when I am so tired. Do you know that
I think it very fatiguing to be engaged to be married in addition to
teaching English.

Henry, on the other hand, was on leave, with nothing to
occupy his time except seeing and writing to Annette. She had an
immediate introduction to Henry as a volcano in perpetual
eruption of happy thoughts and changing plans. The one fixed
point was that he was in a tearing haste.

Henry insisted on being married practically at once. Annette
put up a gallant but unavailing fight to be allowed the decency
of one month of public engagement before marriage. She only
just managed to assert her claim to name the day of the wedding,
and that only after Henry had practically fixed the day of their
sailing together for home.

Henry, mindful of his father’s financial crash, insisted that
Annette’s moneyfrom her father should be secured against his own
depredations. A marriage settlement had to be made, and trustees
d scovered at short notice. Annette called as of right on Two old
friends of her father and for a third on the new friend and
brother-in-law, James Mowatt, whom she had gained through her
sister’s marriage. This last choice led to many troubles in the end.

Henry insisted on not going to church in Calcutta. Only a
year or tw r o before had it been made possible for Europeans in
India to be married otherwise. By Act III of 1872, the Governor-

108

Act III of l8j2

and Legislative Council had provided a form
ri(a^e before a Registrar; out of regard to religious sus
fiis they had limited this form of marriage to couples ready
to declare that neither of them professed “the Christian, Jewish,
Hindu, Muhammadan, Parsi, Buddhist, Sikh or Jaina religion. 3 '
Henry jumped at the chance of making such a declaration.
Annette put up a fight against some features of this alternative
procedure, but in the end she surrendered.

All this, up to the marriage on April 6 under Act III of 1872,
is told best in a selection from Henry's daily or thrice daily letters
of this period.

4 Kyd Street,

Monday morning, 15th March/75.

My Darling Annette,

I am longing for eight o’clock and the prospect of seeing you
then. Come earlier if possible and come right into the Court Yard
and under the Portico, as I want you to come up into the drawing¬
room. There will be no one there but ourselves and I have many
things to say to you. But first I must tell you that I am not going
home to-morrow morning nor next month either for the matter of
that unless you go with me as my wife. I do not think that you can
have any unsurmountable objection to marrying me in Calcutta and
what I propose is that we should get married in the course of a fort¬
night and then go home in the French steamer of the next month.
I am quite miserable at the thought of going on board all alone and
of feeling that every revolution of the steamer’s screw was carrying
me farther from you.

I am sure the Committee would listen to reason if we arranged to
marry here and your friends and pupils would be delighted. Mr. Phear
and Mr. Hobhouse will be able to expound the law on the subject so
that there will be no room to doubt that the knot is not properly tied.
Besides if we go off, I to-morrow and you next month, people will
say that we are running away and are afraid to face the opinion of the
Calcutta public about not being married in a church.

Now be your own dear self and do not be misled by mistaken
notions of duty to your school or of the propriety of being married
in London and

Believe me,

Your loving Henry.

P.S. I love you more and more every day and would like you to
destroy that letter of mine about the imperfect gift.

109

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India Called Them

innette did not destroy “that letter.” She kept it as^
gpt^erything else from Henry, with a few deliberate excep¬
tions, for more than fifty years.

4 Kyd Street.

Tuesday morning.

t 1 6/3/75]

My Darling,

You were very wicked last night and did not sing or do any¬
thing else that you ought to have done and if it had not been for a
little sparkling ring that I saw on your finger I might have fancied
that you meant to throw me over. I therefore beg leave to inform you
that w r e are to be married on the 31st March (Wednesday) at No. 1
Old Ballygunge and probably at 8 a.m. After the marriage we will
proceed to Chandemagore and stay there for a week or so and if wc
can get reserved accommodation in the French Steamer we will go
home in her on the 13th April. ... I am going to-day to give
notice of our intended marriage to the Registrar as fourteen days
notice is required.

I shall feel obliged by your getting together some particulars about
your property as we must have a marriage-settlement and secure your
property40 yourself and your children. It is very provoking that so
much formality has to be gone through but if a young lady has been
bom under such an evil star as to have means of her own she must
take the consequences.

4 Kyd Street,

17th March, 1875.

My Darling,

I had a very pleasant walk home last night in the moonlight
and I had a good sleep afterwards and another walk this morning.
I am therefore quite composed and judicial-minded and am not going
to be unsafe or restless any more. I hope that you too, my Darling,
had a good sleep.

Now to proceed to details, I beg leave to inform you that I am
going down this morning at 10 to take our passage in a reserved
cabin in the Surat which will start on the morning of the 8th prox.
Our marriage must take place before that date and I would suggest
that it should occur a day or two at least previous to the ship’s sailing,
as we all know that ship life is never quite comfortable. We cannot
be married earlier than the 30th and I have suggested the 31st but I
quite admit your right to fix the day, and I bow to your discretion

Act 111 of l8j2

ktter. Of course the earlier we are married the better if
opinion for then we will have more' time to fall into*
i ways before undergoing the trials of ship life, etc.

I have been thinking about the place of celebrating the marriage
and I have come to the conclusion that the right and straightforward
thing is to be married in the Registrar’s Office in Larkins Lane. I
don’t want to receive any favour from I. N. J., and I think it but right
that you and I should accept the disagreeables as w r ell as the advantages
of holding our views. On account of the heat I think we should be
married at 5.30 or 6 p.m., and if you are agreeable on the 31st. After
the marriage we would go to Ballygunge and then I hope Mrs. Phear
would give a dinner to us and such friends as might wish to come, etc.

Dinner over and your speech made might not we drive to Barrack-
pur? The drive is a beautiful one and we would have Moonlight. At
Barrackpur there is I believe a Boarding House and we might have
rooms engaged there beforehand and might stay there for a day or
two. Thereafter we could return to Calcutta and if Mrs. Phear would
be so kind as to receive us we might stay in her house till the 8th.

Please think over all these matters and discuss them with Mrs.
Phear. I don’t fancy Chandernagore. It is commonplace to go there,
and besides all the scoundrels of Calcutta take refuge there. I hope
Mrs. Phear will allow your girls to meet at her house when we return
from the Registrar’s Office. You will be at Ballygunge at about
5 p.m. and let me hear your views. Kindly understand that there are
only two or three points which I think are fixed and that the decision
of the others depends on you and your friends. The points fixed are
1st —that we are to be married;

2nd—that we are to be married in the Registrar’s Office;

3rd—that we are to go home in the steamer of the 8th April and that
the marriage must take place between the 30th March and the 8th April.
You can show this letter to Mrs. Phear if you like.

Your loving husband

in prospect and in accordance with the
provisions of Act III of 1872.

Annette’s reaction to this three-point ultimatum was spirited.
She had three fixed points of her own and only the first one was
the same as Henry’s. Her answer led to a five-sheet letter from
Henry on the following day, which admitted her right to be
married on April 13th rather than March 31st if she chose, or
even to be married at home rather than in India if she insisted,
hut went on to argue the case for not minding an appearance

MIN ISTfff

India Called Them

(3t

native Registrar. “We are in a Bengali country
L^ry to school ourselves into seeing Bengalis in office and
fielding them the submission due to their office.” To try to
insist on a special appointment of a white Registrar would be
an insult to the Bengali nation.” The actual Registrar was
white-haired, spectacled, and Mahomedan-Cadi-looking, a good
simple-minded old man who would be far more frightened of
Annette than she could possibly be of him; the public would be
cleared from the room and die whole affair would take only ten
minutes. You can go down in the Phears’ closed carriage. I
am so proud and happy for the marriage that I have no shyness
whatever and will go down to the office in an open carriage if
need be.”

To this persuasion Annette yielded about the Registrar and,
having done so, stood firm against a last-minute assault on her
feelings by her friend and hostess Mrs. Phear trying to persuade
ner that marriage not in church was shocking. But she insisted
on going to “that place” for the “unhappy ceremony” in a muslin
dress. She kept her wedding dress for the dinner-party that was
to follow at the Phears’ house in the evening. On the question
date there was in due course an honourable compromise.
After Henry had accepted April 13 th in place of March 31st,
while pointing out sadly that there would be no moon for the
wedding drive to Serampur, Annette relented. April 6th was
fixed and held to.

1 he course of true love began to flow clear again. Henry
discovered and enjoyed Annette’s other name of Susannah;
forecast rightly that the question of earrings for Annette—he
wanted them and she did not—would be a fine subject of
argument later; wrote nonsense about his wedding costume
which in touching allusion to his hero the great John Stuart
i\liil w r as to have large brass buttons with windmills engraved
upon them; and revealed his knowledge, derived from Mrs.
Goldie, that Annette had had a proposal from a fellow-passenger
m the Xant ho. He revealed also how he had thought about
Annette in his two sad years at Barisal; he wrote about Jeanie;
he criticized as unutterable twaddle a book which Annette had
lent him; he agreed w ith Annette’s expressed intention of calling
herself m future Akroyd-Beveridge (though in the end she never

1x2

misr^

Act III of l8j2
he began from the beginning his life-long prac

to Annette whatever at any moment was upperm
ind. /*

2 °hl75*

• . . Do you know I begin quite to like the name Susannah and
think of calling you by it. There is something Eastern and queenly
about it and doesn’t it mean the Lily? I used to call you the Pearl of
the Merchant’s Tank but it would be more appropriate and quite as
poetical to translate the Susannah of Baniapookur into the Lily of the
Pool of the Spice-Merchants. Don’t Banias deal in spices chiefly?
Ask Binodini if she approves of this name for you. . . .

W3/75-

• . . I will confess to still feeling slightly angiy at Mrs. Phear for
trying as I think to come between us and nearly making mischief.
One feature of my character, whether amiable or the reverse, I don’t
know, is that when I do get angry or vexed with a person I don’t
readily let my anger go, and say to myself I do well to be angry.
If Mrs. Phear had come to me or to us both together and said her
bitterest about not being married in Church, etc., I would have
admired her courage and have not been angry in the least. But I think
it was rather mean to endeavour to w*ork on my Annette’s sensitive
feelings and if the latter had been less firm and steady of nature Mrs.
P. might really have done some harm. Thank goodness everything
is right again but I was very miserable when I first got your letter
and vented my wrath on Mrs. Stuart in a way that astonished her in
one usually so quiet as I am and which was not a just return for all
he* kindness to me. I apologised next morning and we are as great
friends as ever.

You asked me what sort of hat I liked, so I send you a l’lllustration
wui a picture on the last page of a young lady in a lovely hat and
lonelier collar. Observe also the earring. I think that controversy
about earrings will be an admirable pi£ce de resistance for the future.

t lough I abhor compromise I hereby offer one, viz. to give up
c imney pot hats if you will wear earrings. If I were to present you
with a pair now wouldn’t you wear them? Pearl earrings now would
be a pleasant suggestion of Baniapookur would they not? By the
way, where is this same Pookur for I have never seen it.

Now Darling, rest yourself and let me call for you on Monday to
take you to Ballygunge. I won’t do so unless you allow me to do so
but as you are strong be also merciful and remember that you are a
Heart-Mistress as well as a Head-Mistress and that your loving fiance

JI 3

India Called Them t

beginning his lessons and requires them to be frecujmill ,
?ed to him. 1 k / J

t , , , 2I /3/75-

... 1 wandered for about two hours among the streets and lanes

of North Calcutta yesterday and never found the Chorbazar School.
My own fault you will say, for I mislaid the notice and so didn’t know
the name of the street where the meeting was to be. After all I was
not very anxious to be present, it being enough for me that I did my
best to obey orders and so I did not come back broken hearted. We
went into all sorts of queer places and saw the dead cats, the offal and
the legions of flies which occur in the inside of the platter and which
represent the other side of the stuff of Calcutta improvements. A
vegetarian people, however, have less rubbish to get rid of than a
flesh-eating one and poverty on the whole bears a much less dread
aspect in Calcutta than it does in London or Edinburgh. There are
no gin palaces (their place being apparently supplied by sweet-meat
shops) and not much terrible squalor. The chief regret one feels in
looking at the narrow lanes and the small dark rooms is that the
inhabitants cannot be able to get the South breeze and have no Maidan
to expatiate in.

I send you back the French book. It is unutterable twaddle. There
is not a trace of French sweetness or vivacity in the language nor of
French brilliancy in the thoughts, and it reads as if it was a publication
of the Religious Tract Society or of Messrs. Nisbet & Co. which has
nr. i been diluted with a large quantity of eau sucre and then translated
into French by the bonne of a French pension or some poor and
pums cure. L. T. must, however, be amiable to like such a book and
it is a relief to think that she does admire it for then one can under¬
stand her being able to endure t£te a tetes with her husband. Conceive
a woman who could converse being married to one who talks like
poor Poll and who even if he does write like an angel writes like one
whose wings have the monotonous swing of an Indian punkah.

. . . Wherein am I hasty about your sister? Because I said she
was not a bit like you, you take for granted that I don’t think much
< f her. Oh you foolish Annette, do you not think it is possible for
me to admire anybody who is in a different style from you. Now I
should u(ink there are some things in which Fanny has better taste
and more common sense than you. For example, I am sure that she
wears earrings or at least that she would like to do so if it were not
for fear of her younger sister. I have an idea of her as one who ought
to have been die younger sister and who used to lean on you, and I
suspect you arc slightly jealous of her having transferred some of her

11 4

not

Act III of 1832

affection to her husband. Well you have got somebocft^^
you can take care of him and bring him up by hand. Only
hope to convert him on the subject of earrings. ... I admit
my perversity and the elation to which you refer and I am very sorry
to say that I am likely to be more perverse than ever now, for as long
as I have your love I care neither for King nor Kaiser and will go my
own or rather our own road more determinedly than ever. But the
road will be a Barrackpur avenue or a walk on the Delectable
Mountains and I won’t think it necessary to make the road rougher
than it is or to discover giants in harmless windmills or always to
be taking it for granted that everyone we meet and who therefore is
not going exactly our way is a thief and a robber.

By the way I never quite believed that chapter in the Bible where
all the fervent spirits of old are described as thieves and robbers and
as if Ante-Christian and Anti-Christian were the same thing. There
is a note of Judaism and provincialism about it and I suppose Michelet
was right when he said that Palestine was not big enough for him. . . .

[ /3/75-

I think you are quite right to wish to keep your name. It is much
prettier and more distinguished than mine and I don’t at all approve
of the practice of merging die wife’s individuality in die husband’s,
bo I shall be very glad if you wall sign yourself A. Akroyd-Beveridge.
• . . What do you think I have been doing. Singing hymns with
Mrs. Stuart so you see I have not got quit yet of my religiosity.
Jerusalem the Golden Part I is my favourite especially the lines The
shout of them that triumph, the song of them that feast. They seem
to me to larmomse with the spirit stirring strains of the Marseillaise
and La 1 ar.stenne. Rowland Hill said it was a pity the Devil had all
ie S 00 tunes and so lie converted secular strains into sacred.

JrX n .■ 1 %T in doing so make them over to a worse Devil >

. ', ^ Vl J k ar an< ^ superstition, and might he not lament that

JtwVL ^ appiopriated tunes which might stir the heart of the
1 ' ^ at ler was ver y fond of music and had a very good ear

though not much voice. He used to tell me I was timber-tuned and I
‘ w my eat is defective. Yet I like to make a noise sometimes and
even was fool enough to take some lessons in singing when I was on
m.ough. Dut it was too late and it is only when I am happy as just
now that I feel as if I could sing a Scotch song. . . .

% Own Sweet Lily, 22/3/75.

Susan does mean lily in Arabic and Persian and so I suppose
Susannah must mean the same in Hebrew I’ll get Miss Yonge’s or

India Called Them

ier book however on the subject and find out, thoug
id to look for fear that Susannah might turn out to
ingelse. . . .

Your friend’s lines are beautiful; I must keep them and read them
over again. I hope you never really thought that I was disappointed
at your being undemonstrative. I never found you so and am perfectly
content with your manner of loving. It pleases you to think that you
are undemonstrative, and it pleases me to say that you are so, but in
fact I think you are a most demonstrative person, for the fact of a
letter being written in cipher or in invisible ink does not make it the

less plain and easy of interpretation to those who have the key. If
you were not a woman au bout des ongles as the French say you
would never write to me as you do nor could I love you so much.
I will confess that in old days when I was at Barisal I used to think
of you too much merely as a clever high-principled woman and so
write coldly to you, and then in my foolishness I was disappointed
that you wrote back to me in somewhat the same style. You were so
much everything else that I wanted in a wife that I used to wish I
could love you and feel that there were heat-rays as well as light-rays
in your composition. But I was held back and blinded, partly by
remorse for the sw r eet young life which I had, as I sometimes thought,
crushed and blasted and partly by the fact that I knew you chiefly
through letters and had never seen you when “Love in your eyes sits
blazing.” I used often to think ofJeannie as Marguerite, or let me rather
say Gretchen, and used almost to shudder at die resemblance between
them and also at the resemblance in wickedness between myself and
Faust, who, by the w r ay, w r as also called Henry.

1 remember my sister Phemie who has a knack of saying striking
things at times, remarked when seeing Jeannie and me together that
v/e were like Faust and Marguerite. Dear Annette, after my marriage
I found the wickedness I had committed in mating myself with one
who with all her love and purity and gentleness should have been
my daughter and not n y wife. She saw it too, for love is clear-sighted
and though she loved me deeply to the end she would sometimes say
you must forget your poor school-girl and marry again, or she would
sadly say that she hoped I w ould not feel her death as a relief. I feel
as Thackeray says in Esmond that in writing this I am walking at
the bottom of the sea and treading among the bones of shipwrecks
and l would not have Strength or courage to do so, did I not know
that by a pull at the diving rope I can emerge at once into life and
sunshine. I.et me give that pull and [ell you my own sweet lily and
my own heart’s ease that you are my life and my joy and that I have

116

• mist#

Act III of l8j2

so happy and never so exalted in my life as I have
13th March. ... I quite agree with you about goin:
legistrar’s Office in your walking dress and I think Mrs. Stuart
would be quite sufficient support to you though if you liked it Miss
Gonsalves and perhaps one of your pupils might come too.

For my own part I shall be too proud and happy to hear you say
that you will take me for your husband to care for any externals.
The dingy room and the official papers will become transfigured.

’Tis a note of enchantment, what ails him? He sees
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees
Bright volumes of vapour through Laledighi glide
And a river flows on by the Registrar’s side.

Do you know this “Reverie of poor Susan” of Wordsworth. The
adaptation and the finding of a suitable rhyme to glide have cost me
some cogitation so I hope you will admire it and begin to think I
am a poet without words.

1 he reference to Esmond in this letter is to the end of Chapter
XIII in Book II, where Esmond in Brussels finds his mother’s
grave. Having laid bare to Annette his thoughts of Jeanie, Henry
proceeded to tell her all about his family.

*3/3/75-

... My Own Love, and you think you are cold and undemonstra¬
tive, do you. Perhaps you are, but if so your coldness and undemon¬
strativeness are marvellously sweet and I don’t want you ever to
change them. Though I think you might have given me more
than three kisses considering the number I gave you and considering
too low well you and I have observed the proprieties since the 13th.

, 1 C ev ^J better than your kisses your hiding your head on my
shoulder. There was such a sweet surrender about it and it was like
t e coming down into the valley of the Princess Ida. Your Minerva-
moo s and your Headmistressism deserted you then and you came to
me as you really are—a sweet loving woman with all the softness of
a o\ e and all the timid shrinking confiding tenderness which belong
to my tropica! Lily and Lotus. My dear sensitive plant, something has
stiuck upon your leaves and shut them up in days gone by, but they
are opening out again and I do not believe that they will ever fold
up again unless for a little while just to give them rest. It is a curious
thing that timid, nervous natures should always be the bravest on
occasion. Women are really braver than men because or at least
although they are more nervous than men and it is the most nervous

117

MINlSr^

India Called Them

tsitive women who are the bravest. Take for instance Joi
adame Lavalette, Madame Roland, and that young Scottish
y Catharine. Seyton, who thrust her arm through the ring of a
bolt when James the First’s assassins were coming in and so held the
door fast until her arm was broken.

I don’t know if I ever told you much of the origin of my family.
It is by no means exalted for my father’s father was neither more or
less than a baker in a country town and my mother’s father was a
Supervisor of Excise. There was a Friar Beveridge, however, who
became a Protestant and was burnt on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh
for his belief some time before the Reformation. I would fain claim
kindred with him and would be much more proud if I could prove
that than if I could prove relationship with Bishop Beveridge. My
father’s people came from Dunfermline in Fifeshire and my mother’s
from Linlithgowshire. Though my mother’s father was only an
exciseman he no doubt belonged to a gentler stock than my father’s
people and had a small piece of landed property which had been in
the possession of his family ever since the time of Queen Mary or
even earlier, I think. There are only some twenty or thirty acres but
we have the old Charters for it yet and my mother, and indeed all of
us are not a little proud of the possession. It still belongs to us, my
mother being life-rented in it and on her death it will go to my eldest
brother, David. When I was home on furlough I paid a pilgrimage
to it and was quite interested in looking upon our old ancestral
property. It yields about £50 a year. My mother has always maintained
the superiority of her family to my father’s and no doubt she is right
as regards antiquity and also as regards certain gentlenesses and poetic
feelings, but I must confess that all the pith and vigour of our family
come from the father’s side. My mother has been a dreamer all her
life and at 76 or 77 is as undisciplined in her ways and thoughts as
she was at 17.1 hope you won’t think that in writing this I am botanis-
mg on my mother’s grave, though it has sometimes appeared to me
that there is something to be said even for such botanizers (is this a
Browning or a Beveridge perversity? It is a little like Browning’s
reflection on the glove flung into the lion’s den is it not?) and that
Wordsworth and sentimentalists are too hard on them. Physicians
when dying have turned their thoughts to the observing and recording
of their symptoms for the benefit of posterity and might not such
men have botanized even in die holiest of places if it had been necessary,
and would they not have been right in so doing? My father was a
clergyman, then a lawyer, then a bookseller’s hack, then an editor
and lastly an author. My mother was very pretty in her youth, and

118

• MINISr^

Miss Akroyd's School in March i 8 j 5

miST/fy,

Act III of l8jz

ler love of reading attracted my father while his bei ^
/ciergypi^n and a clever, well-read man attracted her, and they w<
married. But I am afraid that it was not a happy marriage and that my
father married the wrong sister—the other, my Aunt (referred to in
a letter of Maggie’s) having been much the finer character of the two.
Both my mother and my Aunt had money, i.e. they had about £16,000
between them and I am sorry to say that my father mismanaged it
and that we lost everything. How my father spent it I can t exactly
say, and perhaps he could not say either. I am sure we did not get
much pleasure out of the spending. It was muddled away somehow
and chiefly, I believe, by our living beyond our income and breaking
in upon the capital.

My mother has really, I believe, been happier as a widow than she
was as a wife though there was a good deal in common between my
father and mother too a* they were often very happy together.
Still she has been freed from money cares since then and that has
been an immense relief to her. . . . But to return to you my darling.
I am sorry to see you fixing yourself to stick to the School and am
apprehensive lest the effort be too great for your strength. I am going
to see Mrs. Phear to-day and to ask her to relieve you as soon as
possible. No one doubts your courage or your determination but if
you get ill you can neither do justice to yourself nor to your School.
I don’t want you to hasten your marriage day, at least I don’t care
about that so much, but I do want you to be relieved of drudgery as
soon as possible. . . .

Annette was too busy to tell Henry all about her family in
return for this. She gave him her father’s ring. She told him about
her full sister Fanny and agreed with his view that Fanny, in
relation to her, took the younger sister’s place, followed in place
of leading. She had at this time little contact with her step¬
mother or half-sisters; she had not heard from the second Mrs.
Akroyd since she had been in India.

*3/3/75-

. . . So it was a fib you told me about your having answered all
my letters! I not only used to think about you at Barisal but I used
to talk about you too and I am sure my engagement will be no great
surprise to some of my Barisal friends. I remember, however, feeling
that I never could aspire to be the husband of a young lady who 'wrote
that she was going to read Mill’s Autobiography as a holiday-treat.
I felt somew'hat as the Scotch giant did when he went to fight w r ith the

ll 9

India. Called Them

;iant and was deceived by the wife of the latter pulti^**-
id into a cradle and passing him off as the baby. The problem
came before me was: If a young lady reads Mill as a recreation
v at in the name of heaven and Newton-Chattillet does she do when
she does exert her mind ?

Af I , USe ‘i ] to ask Knshna Govinda Gupta about you and when Man
Mohan Chose came and stayed with me I sent him a message for you.

remember too writing to you and telling you that Ram Mohan
Koy had a Mahomedan mistress and I reproached myself afterwards
for doing so for I said Miss A. will think that I look upon her as a
strong-minded woman to whom one can talk as to a man and so will
not get the idea which I wish to convey to her, namely that I might
e a po_si c over. But in fact, Darling, I could not have proposed
to you muc.i earlier than I did for I was too broken in heart and hope
seriously to contemplate a second marriage. . .

In response to this, Annette revealed that she had not liked
a together being written to as if she was different from other
ladies. She thought it, moreover, not a bit remarkable “for some
one who spends her time teaching elements to rush to something
harder for a holiday”; she did not start with the advantage of
having the same sense of humour as Henry. But she was mollified
by Henry’s having thought about her in Barisal and she gave
away the secret of her earlier unresponsiveness.

Do you know that it makes me feel much happier and more tranquil
about our marriage, that you did think about me in Barisal? ... Do
you remember writing to me about Keshub? and offering to write

evcn t0 klrn ’ f° r me - Indeed I was very grateful, but not on that
account even was I able to go on writing to you. We women are
obliged to seem ungrateful sometimes.

blor was Annette able to share the excitement about Act III
of 1872, which Henry showed in his next letter. To Annette the
way to marriage with Henry remained an unhappy ceremony
about which the less said the better—by anybody at any time.

Tuesday the 23rd.

" * * ^ r ’ Beverle Y was doing his best to chaff me yesterday and
v ien said I was not going to do the thing (marriage) in a corner
lle s p certainJ y not and that I and poor Eliot Macnaughten would
oe the two subjects of conversation in Calcutta for some days. I

120

Act III of 18J2

ieorge Barclay the Editor of the Englishman a little ar._ .
ion him yesterday and told him the facts so that if he ever wants
to put in a paragraph he has got the real story. I even told my Tailor,
remarking to him that though I was going to be married in an un¬
romantic manner I did not see why my coat, etc. should not be of
the orthodox cut. We can change or abandon our religion but we
must be conservative with regard to our Tailor and our Hatter. Or
in other words, if I cannot both be clothed and in my right mind at
my marriage I shall at least be the first of these two things. . . .

26/3/75-

... I feel rather tired this morning in consequence of the endurance
I had to practise during the Lecture. After we are married I do not
think we shall go to Lectures, at least not to those of the Bethune
Society. However I am not at all sorry that I went last night. . . .

On this point at least Annette was able to give reassurance
to Henry, though her alternative to lectures might not have
appealed to another lover:

Do not be alarmed about the future. We will not go to lectures.
We will stay at home and you shall read French and I German to
one another. (There is something odd about that sentence, is there
not?) Are you willing to do that when we go into banishment with
only the frogs in the tank for our companions ?

In the same letter she set Henry’s mind at rest on a more
urgent matter. She let him know obliquely that if it suited Mrs.
1 tear she would marry him on April 6th or yth. On this Henry
took the bit in his teeth and settled with Mrs. Phear the date
when Annette should finally leave her school. “I never,”
said Annette, “had my own way so little in my life. It is quite
a novelty to feel that I don’t belong to myself.” With date and
all else settled, Henry ceased to erupt, but went on writing love.

28/3/75.

... I am going to write away at my history to-day and not go
out calling and I hope that you will rest quietly. I send you some
French Illustrations and a Dfe of Mendels aim which I picked 4 p on
a book stall the other day. I have not quite finished it but donV care
to read any more of it just now and it may help to divert your thoughts.

121

mtSTfiy

India Called Them

icians seem to be an even more excitable race than poets
e even less calm happiness in life. His father was most anxious
that he should marry and so get tranquillised and the experiment
succeeded and might have been quite effectual if his wife had not died.
I am concerned to think that you may have imagined me in earnest
saying that you were extravagant and a bad manager. Scotch

humour consists very largely of that dry sort which is formed by
saying the exact opposite of what one means. This variety of humour
strikes me often as somewhat heavy and stupid but it belongs to my
nation and family and so I can't get rid of it. Mrs. Goldie always
praised you highly for your neatness and management and as your
fellow cabin passenger she had a good opportunity of judging. As for
your extravagance I never saw or heard of any such trait in your
character. There’s a palinode for you. ... I must show you some
day my solitary literary production, an Essay on Christianity in
India in the Theological Review. I have not got a copy now.

My friend Morris was pleased to say once that I was one of the
readiest writers in the service but in fact writing has always been a
great labor to me unless indeed when I write a letter to somebody I
like.

Now my Darling, do write me a letter with a beginning and an
end to it. . . .

i/4/75-

. . . One more night has gone and it is getting very near now to
the wedding-day. I am perfectly happy at the thought of its coming
so soon and I hope that you, my Own Darling, are happy also. You
lay down your Headmistress-ship to-day and with that you have to
lay down all the sternness which you try to put on sometimes and
yet are not very successful in assuming. Some people find out each
others’ dispositions after marriage but you see I have found you out
before and know that you are a simple, loving, soft-hearted woman
for all your grand airs. Many thanks my darling for your songs last
night, I never heard Kennst Du Das Land before, and was delighted
with your singing of it.

My dear Susannah , lilies grow in valleys and by the banks of
streams and not on barren mountain peaks and so my own Lily of
the Valley you are only following your name in coming down from
the heights of schoolmistress-ship and giving all your sweetness up
to your husband. I don’t quite admire Tennyson's Princess for I
think the Prince a bit of a muff and I think Ida yielded too much and
sank into a commonplace wife, but some of the passages are
beautiful.

122

Act III of i8yz

bu, my Darling, will not have to yield anything, for J\
you are and I never wish you to give up your working for
others and your desire to make other people happier and better. If
I thought my darling that by marrying you I would hamper you in
any way or clip the wings by which you fly above the mists and
vapours of selfishness, I should be very sorry. But I do not think
anything of the kind though even if I did I am afraid I would not
give you up for I cannot do without you my darling though with
you I think I could do anything. . . . Do please send me a letter
with a beginning and an end to it.

Not unnaturally Annette wondered sometimes what Henry
had felt or still felt about Jeanie. What had been in his mind
when he planned to go back on furlough again? What had he
said to his kinsfolk about marrying again? Henry told her and
revealed that the understanding Maggie had been the wisest of
them all.

3 / 4 / 75 -

• • . I made no promises to my mother or Maggie. I told my
brother to meet me at Marseilles and sent him thirty pounds for his
expenses but probably he would get my second letter before he left
London. If not he is quite capable of taking care of himself and will
enjoy his trip very much even though I am not with him. I did tell
Mrs. Goldie and Maggie through her in a rather rhodomontading
letter that I never meant to marry again, etc., etc., but that was only,
you see, the grand final volley fired by the garrison just before it
surrenders. About a year ago David wrote that Mrs. Howison hoped
I would marry again and I wrote an indignant letter back. Subse¬
quently Mrs. Goldie hinted at the same thing and said she would be
happy it she saw me with some one who would take care of me, and
I again wrote not indignantly but as I thought decidedly. My sister
Maggie though was the wisest of all for when I wrote to her half¬
complaining that my friends at home were wanting me to marry again
and saying that I was sure she would agree with me in thinking I
should not marry again she preserved a discreet silence and took no
notice of my letter. No doubt she said to herself it is useless to try to
drive him, let him alone and he will get on to a fresh thought of his
own accord.

Do you know I think I am like in some things that rather weak
and selfish, pain-avoiding mortal John Sterling and like him I have
eine fiirchterliche Fortschrittung as Goethe said of Schiller (vide
s Autobiography which you will find in the compartment of

I2 3

India Called Them

§L

kspJU

>okshelf devoted to Seaside and Railway Reading Books)

ery glad to hear you like society though indeed I knew it before,
like society too.

Tiie next letter, the last but one of this courtship, revealed
Henry’s understanding that, even without him, Annette’s
mission to Indian women was near its end when he broke in.

5th April, 1875.

. . . Only one day more now. You will bid goodbye for ever to
Baniapookur to-day and I have no doubt you will feel some sorrow
in doing so. But you know that you could not have stayed there for
ever and that at the most you have only anticipated your intended
departure by a month or two.

Which do you think will be the hardest work? To keep fourteen
girls in order or to manage your husband. One advantage will be that
you will at least have no Committee to consult and that you will be
quite free to follow your own devices. Isn’t there a schoolmistress
who is all kinds of perfections and also marries somebody at last in
the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table? There is also a famous passage in
Love s Labour’s Lost about the good effect of marriage on promoting
study etc, wliich Coleridge talks of as the finest piece of rhetoric in
Shakespeare.

I don’t remember any historical instance of a great schoolmistress
falling in love but no doubt your historical learning will enable you
to quote cases.

There was Hypatia to be sure, but even Kingsley only makes her
half and half in love with anybody. And there was Romola who was
her father’s amanuensis and who married poor Tito who by the way
is rather harshly treated by George Eliot. Poor man he entertained a
goddess unawares and was not strong enough for the society.
Entertaining angels unawares may be very delightful but I should
think the unfortunate host must feel sometimes a sentiment of
lassitude creep on him and wish for the being not too high or good
for human nature’s daily food. He will feel like me sometimes when
I think I am expected to talk clever. Not indeed My Darling that I
feel that with you, though I may say so sometimes. You are my
Heart’s Ease, you know, and the green shade to my eyes, so I write
and talk to you whatever comes uppermost. Shall I go meandering on
any longer or shall I (dear me I hope will I is not the proper grammar)
have mercy on you and stop. Well I think I’ll stop and will conclude
with asking you to send me a letter and to tell me any tiling you want
me to do. . . .

124

Act III of l8j2

4 Kyd Street,

Tuesday, April 6 1875.

<SL

My Darling,

I send you the last letter which I shall ever write to Annette Akroyd.
This night you will sleep in my arms and henceforth you and I will
fare through the world together. May we never be separated and may
you never have cause to regret the day when you trusted me with
your father’s ring. I have no fears whatever for my own happiness
and in future I think it will only be the sorrow of others which will
touch me. I too like the poet of the Bridges have sometimes thought
my burden greater than I could bear and have had a hot and restless
heart. It is you my own Heart’s Ease who have already soothed me
and who I know will do so yet more all the after days of my life.
You, My Darling, left all by yourself in this country and without
your sister or any other near friend or relative beside you must, I
doubt not, feel sometimes a little anxious about the future and be
wondering if you have chosen rightly. But I am sure also that you
are on the whole happy and that you trust and love me. And when
I, if I can do so, put my own feelings on one side and think only of
your interests and of how the marriage will affect you I confess that
I do not think that you have any real grounds for fear and that I
believe that you will be happy—happier even than in the days when
you were your friends’ Sunshine. For I take it, Darling, that you
must have been happy there else you could not have had sunshine to
pour into the hearts of others. I am happy now and will be happier
to-night but I do not think I shall be so happy in India or on the
voyage as I will be on the day when I will introduce you to my
mother and sister. My sister Maggie is a feminine edition of myself
and therefore much purer and brighter, so I have no doubts about
her loving you or of you loving her. In fact you already know her
very well on account of your knowing me. She lectures me on my
restlessness and impulsiveness but she is a w r ee bit restless herself
though I do not think she is fidgetty. But you know I am not to be
fidgetty either after I gather my fleur de lys. You see I connect you
through your middle name with my beloved France and expect you
to share my grief about Alsace and Lorraine. Perhaps the above is
rhapsodical nonsense but I do not think it is so altogether. I write
it to you because I know you understand me and will not laugh at
me or try to crush out my fancies because I express them badly or
awkwardly. I come from a hard, praenc .1 country and perhaps in
the recoil from it I am sometimes too soft and want the requisite
amount of grit. It is so hard, darling, to have both grit and softness

125

MIN/Sr^

India Called Them

/there are sweet flowers among the granite rocks and ri

_ ^ ^whicn do not make the music mute. You say you do not like

valleys but what ugly things mountains would be without them.
And it is precisely the highest and hardest, rockiest mountains which
have the profoundest and most beautiful valleys is it not? I never
saw mountains worth the name that hadn’t them. It is only arid sand
hills and smooth commonplace chalk hills that have not them.
Scotland after all is not all a hard country as its music and some of
its poetry show. I fancy the Celtic element in it has softened it and
you know too it is an old remark that the Scotch and French have
always been allies and that there is more resemblance between them
than between the English and French. But I see your practical English
head with the fly-away hair beginning to shake over this letter and
asking where is the matter of fact epistle that he promised me. So
111 draw the curtain and give you some Baniapukurism, i.e., practi¬
calities for a change.

Well then, the bearer of this letter has got a ticca gharry with him
and he will take your box or boxes. So please make it over to him.
Your Ayah can come to-morrow with my Khidmutgar and can bring
any other things you require. I shall also have a small portman¬
teau in the carriage along with us. It will be more than half empty
and you can put into it anything you require at the last moment.
I will bring it up to Ballygunge and it will serve as a footstool
for you on your way to Serampur if for no other purpose. This
will be a long day for you, My Darling, but time and tide run
through the roughest day and eight o’clock will come at last. Your
rest will begin as soon as you get into the carriage and I won’t
expect you to speak or to do anything but rest until we get to
Serampur.

Rest is contagious just as much as unrest and I can assure you that
your best method for curing me of unrest and fidgettiness will be to
let me see you at rest and happy yourself.

I will be at the Registration Office at 4.20 and will meet you there
at 4.30. We won’t be more than ten minutes in the office and thereafter
will go back in the Phears’ brougham to Ballygunge. Do you think
that Mrs. Beveridge will give her husband one kiss on the way back
if the syce is not looking and there are no proprieties to be outraged?

I believe a kiss is realty a part of the marriage ceremony and as we
unfortunately cannot indulge in it at the very moment of the ceremony
die best tiling we can do is to exchange it as soon after as possible.

1 ought not to have used the w r ord indulge when what I am talking
of is a grave judicial act. It is the seal or the sealing wax you know

126

Act III of l8j2

Disraeli in Lothair instead of saying that his hero
ide says that he “sealed her speechless form” though 'wKy^
eechless I don’t know. The Register of course is the glue but as I
pointed out glue melts in India and therefore we had better have the
seal in addition.

The Register , the ring and the seal ought between them to make a
threefold cord which as you know is not quickly broken.

\our loving betrothed and 4.30 p.m. husband,

Id. Beveridge.

In case Annette should feel that even the end of this letter did
not concentrate sufficiently on Baniapookur practicalities, Henry
sent in the same envelope a four-page memorandum telling her
meticulously how to get to the Registration Office and what
would happen there, what he would say and she would answer.

Four-thirty p.m. on April 6, 1875, cam e at last. Annette went
dutifully before the native Registrar in Larkins Lane, signed after
Henry a printed declaration that she did not profess any of the
prescribed assortment of religions, and was married under Act
III of 1872. Henry and Annette were the first or nearly the
first beneficiaries of this Act. An Indian friend many years
afterwards told their son that the Act came colloquially to be
called the Beveridge Act.

There followed a wedding party in the house of Mr. and Mrs.
Phear, a moonlight drive to Serampur, a fortnight there, and
then on April 22nd Henry and Annette set off in the s.s Peshawar ,

to present their accomplished fact to their surprised relations on
both sides.

Henry s second marriage was the antithesis of his first one. He
passed horn a schoolgirl of 17 to a schoolmistress of 32, from
a cot of his close family circle to a stranger brought to him by
chance from England. Jeanie in his story remains inevitably a
shadowy figure. She was 19 only when she died in seeking to
give Henry his first child. No one can tell what kind of mate she
would have made for his long life to come. Two things are
certain. Her time with Henry was supremely happy, and her
gentle ghost never came between him and his later loves; her
memory was built into his new life.

127

India Called Them

in her first year as Henry’s wife noted “Je
in her diary and wrote to Mrs. Goldie for that
sister Annie was Henry and Annette’s first guest from
England. Their second daughter was given the names of her
owm mother and of Jeanie. All the children on their first visit
to Scotland were taken to stay with Mrs. Goldie; on this or
another visit she gave an album to Annette with the inscription:
“From Eliza Goldie to Annette Beveridge in remembrance of a
friendship begun in the S.S. Xandio and followed by odier ties.”
Mrs. Goldie’s friendship with Henry and Annette and David
lasted through life. In Annette’s mind, as she once wrote to
Henry, she and Jeanie were inseparably united by him, for both
loved him.

The unromantic ceremony in Larkins Lane, as it opened a
new chapter, closed old chapters for both the principals, for
Annette as well as for Henry. The Hindu Mahila Bidyalaya,
though it was not called Miss Akroyd’s School, in fact depended
on Miss Akroyd. Within a year of her becoming Mrs. Henry
Beveridge that school was closed, though something was done
to replace it.

In the endless warfare of men and women against ignorance,
and of women against enslaving tradition, there are victories and
defeats and forlorn hopes. Annette’s mission to India was one
of these last. She found no demand for her. She brought no
battalions. She had no natural allies. The Government was
thinking of other things. The Christian missions looked askance
at one who might have no religion, and who was ready to declare
herself not a Christian. She was an almost solitary sniper
attacking a fortress. She came in due course, for she never
blinked facts, to speak of her voyage as a mad venture and of her
time in Calcutta as semi-suicide.

That does not mean that the venture was not worth making
and left no results. Twenty-five years later in England Annette
looked back on it, in writing not of herself but of her friend and
chief ally Lady Phear, then lately dead.

In ii linking over the results of the work in which Lady Phear took
so great a part, there is one which is of the utmost importance. Of
die greater part of India it can unfortunately still be said that it has
no giris. I r has children and married women and no class such as we

128

Act III of l8j2

lengali

^ iiere when we speak of our girls. But the outcome o: ^
t 1873 is that there is now a considerable number of Beng;
girls who enjoy their irresponsible ’teens as do their English prototypes.
Some part of this great good is certainly due to our lost friend s work.

Nothing done for an undying cause is wholly in vain, not
even semi-suicide in Calcutta.

129

To marry is to domesticate the Recording Angel.

R. L. Stevenson: Virginibus Puerisquc (1881).

Buttons and darning are a part of the profession I have
adopted and must be seen to. When they are satisfactorily
done with we will see about articles and novels.

Annette from Switzerland to Henry in London,
August ii, 1876.

Couldnt I buy you a hat?

Henry from London to Annette in Switzerland,
August 11, 1876.

I am doing what I hope always to do—writing to you
exactly as I feel at the moment. Dotit let my remarks
go for too much with you.

Henry from London to Annette in Switzerland,
August 22, 1876.

I thought you were rather hard on me about the Saturday
Review but for all that I was glad you wrote it and I hope
you will never hesitate to tell me exactly what you think.

Henry from London to Annette in Switzerland,
August 18, 1876.

misT/f

Chapter VIII

RECORDING ANGEL

H ENRY and Annette arrived at Southampton at the end
of May with eighteen months of furlough ahead of them.
Their business was to make themselves known to their
relations on each side, to finish what they had come to describe
as our book, 55 that is to say the History and Statistics of the
District of Bakarganj , to build up their strength again after the
exhaustion of Bengal, and above all to get to know one another.

The closest of Henry’s relatives to him were his brother
David, who came to Southampton to welcome the returning
bridal pair, and his sister Maggie, whom he had described to
Annette as a female edition of himself. Almost the first visit of
Henry and Annette, within a few weeks of their arrival, was to
Eyemoudi on the Berwickshire coast, where Maggie had become
the minister s wife. There they found also Jeanie’s mother,
Mrs. Goldie, and her grandmother, Mrs. Howison. Annette
made friends completely with Maggie and remained friends
always with Mrs. Goldie. From Eyemouth Henry went in July
to Culross on a preliminary reconnaissance of Jemima, already
in her 8oth year.

Culross, 10/7/75.

M} poor old mother was waiting for me at die station she having
walked up all the way (three miles) to meet me. . . . This is always
a me audio y house to me and I do not intend to bring you over to

J* r°n C an< ^ ^ en on ty for a day or two. . . . The house
is u . o o d pictures and china and books which belonged to us in the
ca}s o our grandeur. . . . After we get to Edinburgh I hope to set
to woik on the history for I feel well and strong now and meditate
letuming to India in February or March next. However we will talk
about diat when we meet.

Annette’s relations with her mother-in-law were never any-
thing but friendly, but on this occasion Henry did not try to
make them close. He did not in die vent carry out die sug¬
gestion made in diis letter of returning to India after less than

r 3 i

MINIS/*,.

India Called Them

of absence. But that he should make this sugge^
how India was already burned into him. It was his home.
On Annette’s side much tire closest of her relations at this
time were her full sister Fanny and her brother-in-law James
Mowatt. Fanny had been Annette’s companion in the Working
Women’s College and the first confidant of her plan to go to
India. She had married James Mowatt less than a year before
Annette’s own marriage and James had been accepted warmly
by Annette as one of her friends. James had become a trustee of
Annette’s marriage settlement. He and Fanny were there to
welcome Henry and Annette at Southampton.

Of the rest of her own family, Annette on this occasion saw
relatively little. Of her step-mother, Mrs. Akroyd, there is at
this time hardly any mention. Her half-brodier Will she did
see and was glad to find “so brother-like”; by her half-sisters
Katie and Nelly she noted herself as neglected. There was
between Fanny with her husband James and Mrs. Akroyd with
the second family that fertile source of estrangements—questions
as to family property, questions which James as himself a man
of property took seriously. Into these disputes Henry and
Annette refused to be drawn; neither of them were people to
quarrel about possessions. But the fact that they were so close
to Fanny and James at this time helped to make them less close
to Mrs. Akroyd and her children. Later, as friendship with Fanny
•weakened, friendship with the second family grew. On her
later visits to London Annette always found a home with her
step-mother; she invited both her half-sisters to visit her in
India and actually took one (Nellie) out with her; she came to
regard the two sons of the other half-sister (Kate) —her beloved
father’s grandchildren—as the next dearest thing to her own
chi! Iren. But on the first visit all this was in the future. The two
newly married pairs, Fanny and James, Annette and Henry, saw
one another repeatedly. Henry never came to do more than
tolerate Fanny, who seemed to him altogether lacking in his
Annette’s education. Of his brother-in-law, James, he became
genuinely fond.

There vere plenty of other relations and friends to be visited.
Henry and Annette dutifully and willingly went the round of
Culross, Eyemouth, Evesham, Stockport, Clifton, Blackheath.

132

Recording Angel

ir real business was with themselves. They went ho:

Sung to the west coast of Scotland, and at last, in October
1875, g ot a furnished house all to themselves—a little house of
Mrs. Belloc’s at n, Great College Street, Westminster. 1 Here on
Christmas Day the History of Bakarganj got finished “all but
the General Remarks.” Here the General Remarks were added
and the last words of all were written on March 13, 1876, the
anniversary of their engagement, and to Annette the anniversary
of her father’s birth. Here also in this same month Henry took
an important decision as to his future career. Indian Civil
Servants hitherto had been both administrative and judicial.
For the future they were to be divided between these functions.
Henry had to choose and he chose die judicial side.

In the first months of marriage Henry and Annette were, of
course, continuously together. There was no occasion in 1875
for more than a couple of letters from Culross, the one already
given and another in which Henry recorded with conscious
virtue: “I went twice to church with my mother yesterday up z
very steep hill”; all churchgoing had become rather up-hill work
to Henry. During 1876, while centred at Great College Street,
they were separated more often, as one or odier went for short
visits alone, Henry to Cambridge in January with James Mowatt
and to Scotland in June, Annette to Hastings in March and to
Cambridge in May. The stream of daily or twice-daily letters
from Henry on every separation began. Most of these letters are
short, taken up with travelling plans, or with family affairs.

ut here and there a passage throws light on the two principal
characters.

I rom Cambridge, in January, Henry wrote to Annette:

These dons are very practised talkers and one feels abashed
before them.”

I could fancy Cambridge life being very delightful to an under¬
graduate and it is always one of the regrets of my life that I had not
a University education. There is no College Life in the Scotch
Universities. Now, however, I feel too old and sad for such a life
and wish I were back with you in our little drawing-room at Great
College Street. That is my true academy.

Tu n Tr* now pulled down and rebuilt, is described by Mrs. Belloc Lowndes in

1 he M ”ry Wives of Westminster.

133

India Called Them

Cambridge, in May, Henry sent Annette news abo
tta school.

I see that Lord Northbrook expressed a deep interest in female
education in the letter which he wrote to Mrs. Phear giving a donation
to the school intended to fill the void caused by the closing of Miss
Akroyd’s school.

I am quite as anxious to get down [to Cambridge] as ever you can
be to see me. ... I will remember the bodice and the spectacles.

Annette had already heard some months before about the
closing of her school and had written a number of letters to
Indian friends about it. That chapter was ended. Her new
profession was the care and understanding of Henry. He
reported to her from a visit in June to Culross:

Mama bids me say with her love that she thinks me looking better
but that I have a terribly stem and stubborn look at times. She says
I have great wrinkles in my forehead and I tell her they are the
memorials of past conflicts.

My mother bemoans my heresies occasionally but she is evidently
very glad to have me here and enjoys her evening game at whist
very much. I was telling her that orthodox as she thought herself she
was not nearly so much so as her grandmother and had perforce
moved with the age. She actually rejects the doctrine of the eternal
damnation of unbaptised infants and believes that good heathens and
Hindoos will go to heaven.

Henry himself remained firm in his agnosticism. Annette,
though to marry Henry she had submitted to renouncing
formally the name of Christian, was not able to give up desire
for belief in God. While Henry was seeing his mother in
Scotland, she re-visited her Unitarian and Theistic friends in
Stourbridge and Lancashire. She wanted to know what Henry
thought about their views.

Worsley, 8/6/76.

Mr. Dendy talked to me a great deal before going away about a
‘‘Divine Mind” to which he attributed all the traits of a personal deity
—a paternal God and seemed to think me far wrong when I could
not see cause for supposing die personal and paternal attributes

*34

MINfSr*

Recording Angel

isL

tell me if you think it contradictory to known fac£
that there is a natural force—which has its highest known
^namfestation in the human brain and wdiich in the degree of the
development of the individual brain “makes for” beauty and
knowledge? Such a force I could call “Divine Mind” and in thinking
of it I can feel the same sense of repose wdiich my old Theistic ideal
gave. It gratifies my craving for an ideal unity.

To use a phrase quoted by Mr. Dendy, it gives a unity “in which
we live and move and have our being.” The constant notion of
individuality (even on this earth) wearies one’s mind and it w'ould be
satisfying to be able to rest oneself on the thought of a comprehensive
unity.

I hope you will not find my metaphysics vague or unreasonable.
I had intended not to write any but being much in my mind they
must come out to you.

Henry was not to be entrapped—now or later—into religious
argument.

#> Culross, 6/76.

^ You will think me unsympathetic with you in your thoughts about
Theism. I confess that I have such a feeling of relief at having got rid
of such questions and at having laid these spectres of the mind that
I do not wdsh to rouse them up again. I do not say that Theism is not
true. All I say is that I can make nothing of the question. I have given
it as much attention, perhaps too much indeed, as I could afford and
as life is short and one has other things to do I have abandoned the
subject just as one throws up an insoluble chess problem or an
unguessable (by him) riddle. It is very well for Mr. Dendy to believe
in J heism. If he did not I do not see how he could justify himself
ior having nine children. But he also believes in the sacred right of
Manchester and Macclesfield to have a free vent and that it is w r rong
lor the India Government to levy a reasonable duty on European
goods for purposes of finance. I think we must be content w r ith
ignorance at present. Some future generation may have a revelation
and I am far from supposing that man may never see behind the veil.
But as yet I think it has not been lifted.

Henry and Annette’s main business in these first years was to
get to know one another and to grow into one another. They
had also to rebuild their strength, for Bengal had left its mark
°n both of them. Henry had written to Annette in July 1875
that lie was now well and strong again. About Annette he w rote

*35

India Called Them

it the same time to his mother that “it will be somd
she quite recovers from her Indian labours/’

One mark of these labours was a difficulty in hearing. Almost
the first thing that Henry and Annette did on reaching England
was to visit an aurist, die first of many similar visits which
Annette was to pay, as the disability of deafness grew remorse¬
lessly on her. The first origin of this disability cannot now be
determined. It is possible diat the seed of it was sown by an
illness white she was still a girl, but diere is no hint of it in any of
her early diaries or her first Calcutta days, when she sang and
talked and listened to music. The first mention of deafness is after
six months of India, in June 1874, when she felt very unwell
“widi great pain in one ear and deafness,” diagnosed as due to a
threatened abscess; she described this as another “cross” of
Calcutta. The results of the first visit to an aurist in June 1875
are nowhere recorded. Then, and for some years to come, she
wa s able to hear sufficiently for practical purposes.

The aurist apparently had no specific for Annette. She was
thrown back on seeking a general improvement of health by a
cure at St. Moritz in the Engadine. They decided to take
St. Moritz on the way back to work at the end of Henry’s
furlough.

So at die beginning of July 1876 Henry set out for the second
time with a wife across Europe on the way to India. But this
was a more leisurely and not a continuous journey. By Harwich,
Antwerp, and Basel the pair made their way to the Engadine;
t!-re Annette stayed, taking a cure of daily baths till intp
September. For three weeks she was alone there while Henry
came back on a flying visit to London, walking over the Albula
Pa ; s from the Engadine. His first book, “our book,” on the
District of Bakarganj , was on the point of publication. He was
already beginning to think about Warren Hastings and the
subject of his next book, and he wanted to read at the British
Museum and the India Office before going out to India. The
visit was also an occasion for re-furbishing his wardrobe and
Annette s. Nothing ever gave Henry more pleasure dian being
allowed to do for Annette things which were outside his natural
competence.

136

Recording Angel

(St

/8/*gXLJ

Hotel Luknx
Chur. 6/8/-

Be sure and send me full instructions about your dress.
What am I to do about it when I get to London? . . .

There will be rather a difficulty, will there not, about the con¬
veyance of it from Coire to St. Moritz. Mrs. Herbert (the dressmaker)
will not pack it very strongly, and I fear it may get crushed or dirtied
in the diligence. Possibly it might go in my trunk and if this could
be done it would be sure of coming safe. I could easily take out my
greatcoat, etc. and strap them into a separate parcel. I think I should
like to walk at least part of the way from Coire to St. Moritz but even
if I came in the diligence with the dress I could not easily protect it.
However, do not distress yourself, I will manage to bring it safely
some way or other, and it will be no trouble to me. Take care of
yourself and go drives and let me have a full account of your doings.

London, 9/8/76.

Were it not for the British Museum I would come back at once.
I was there to-day rummaging among dingy manuscripts. All the
writers of them are dead and gone long ago and their hot disputes
and eagerly pursued schemes are stilled for ever.

While Henry was in London the reviews of the History of
Bakarganj began to come; though the last words had not been
written till March, the book had been published in July. One of
the first notices, in the Saturday Review , was far from friendly.

There is a long article in the Saturday on our book evidently written
by an Anglo-Indian and probably by Seton Kerr. You will be amused
to hear that he animadverts on the Thackeray note and the disparaging
remarks about predecessors. However he is on the whole favourable.

I hope that you are getting on with your description of the
fcngadine or with your novel or with both.

Annette s answer to this letter and to v/hat it said of the
aturday Review article came in tw r o letters of August 13th and
*4l-h, to which Henry replied on the 18th.

St. Moritz, 13/8/76.

. ^ our letter and the Saturday have just come. The adverse criticism
ls J us i-> h seems to me—but perhaps I am biassed by its coincidence

*37

India Called Them

?ral points with my opinion. I am regretting that I did
^ than I did about your remarks on your predecessors for I did
iot like your reflections upon them. You were, however, so resolute
about the Thackeray note that I hesitated later on to say all I thought,
and now I feel sharply the reflection implied upon you by the criticism
on these two points because you are not what they suggest, incon¬
siderate of the feelings of others. I was not “amused” that the
Saturday” agreed with me about the Thackeray note—all my old
regret came back and I know more decidedly that it was a wrong note,
wrong to the man and wrong to you and useless.

St. Moritz, 14/8/76.

I have been anxious all day lest I might have said anything which
might have hurt you yesterday about our book. Forgive me if I did,
I was full of regrets when I wrote and perhaps put them in too strongly.

London, 18/8/76.

I thought you were rather hard on me about the Saturday Review,
but for all that I w'as glad you wrote it and I hope you will never
hesitate to tell me exactly what you think. Granted that the reviewer
was right about Thackeray and my predecessors, surely he talked
nonsense about the breezy plains, and his sneer at me for not being
a sportsman is but a poor backhander for my objecting to the
preservation of pigs for hunting purposes. I don’t think I spoke very
ill of my predecessors and I thought everybody would see when I
spoke of Bakarganj being the dustbin of Bengal, etc., that I implied
that I myself was part of the rubbish seeing that I had been shot into
it five years ago and left there.

As to the article itself, that was clearly written, as Henry
divined, by an Anglo-Indian of the old school, old enough to
look down on Henry as “one of the gentlemen who are commonly
called competitioners” and glad of any handle for criticism. The
'Thackeray note” was an undeniable slip of Henry’s. On p. 142
he suggested that a “\V. M. Thackeray” who figured somewhat
dubiously in a controversy with the East India Company in
1777 might be the father of the novelist; by the time that he
reached Jie end of his proofs Henry had discovered that the
suggestion was wrong, since the novelist’s father was named
“Richmond,” and on p. 451 he made this correction. As to
reflections on his predecessors, Henry’s case was a good one.
It was part of his argument for replacing European by native

138

Recording Angel

itration, particularly in unpopular districts like Bakai^ ^

__ .' this measure greater continuity of treatment could be

secured, i ne real quarrel of the Saturday Reviewer was with
Henry’s fundamental thesis that progress to Indian in place of
English administration should be made as fast as practicable and
not with every possible delay. Not unnaturally the Saturday
Reviewer thought Henry’s “General Remarks,” and even more
the Note to the General Remarks,” out of place. But they were
of the essence of Henry’s argument. 1

By the discussion of this review the right and duty of each
partner to say at all times to the other what was in his or her
mind were established. The interchange of letters between
London and the Engadine continued. Annette was contemplating
writing a book herself. Henry, while gathering materials for his
own book, pursued as a pleasure the furbishing of Annette’s
waidiobe, and as a duty of increasing difficulty the acquaintance
of her nearest relations—James and Fanny Mowatt.

London, 11/8/76.

Couldn t I buy you a hat ? I could get Fanny’s assistance and it
would be no trouble at all to me to buy it.

Annette’s answer on August 14th was:

St. Moritz.

It will be troublesome I fear to bring me a hat—if you find it not
too troublesome, however, I shall be very pleased to have one of

your choice from Brandon’s-not Mde. Louise! Don’t spend too
much on it dear!

London, 13/8/76.

I have just come back from Upper Gloster Place. James and Fanny
were there and the old lady and gentleman. . . . After dinner James
took me out to the enclosure and we sat on a bench there in the cool
of the evening enjoying the breeze and looking at the water and the
island and the trees while the notes of die Sunday band were occas¬
ionally borne on the wind. All this dme, however, poor James prosed
about Mrs. Akroyd, Great Western shares, dividends, etc. I said yes
and no mechanically and apparently he did not find out that I had
not taken in a word of what he had been saying. Once the thought
struck me that it was not quite fair not to try to comprehend what he

> More is said of them later, in the Epilogue,

I39

MIN/Sr^

India Called Them

ig but this was immediately followed by the happy tho

§L

hot to listen was indeed the fairest thing I could do. For as his was
only a one-sided statement if I had listened I should have been sorry
not to have had Mrs. A’s also and by not listening to James I avoided
misjudging her.

He is a dear good fellow but somehow he strikes me as resembling
poor Mr. Bravo. . . „ Both were briefless barristers, both were
amiable affectionate men with doting mothers and both were con¬
tinually harping on investment and “the estate.”

It was not surprising that soon after Henry should write to
Annette of her sister and brother-in-law: “I have given up that
couple for I can do them no good and I do not think they can
do me any.” They were the victims of interest in possessions.
Their relations —or rather Fanny’s relations to Annette—passed
through a continuous alternation of summer and winter, with
winter chiefly towards the end.

The main interest of the two correspondents was naturally in
discovering and telling one another about themselves. They had
not been married long and they both had much to learn.

London, 9/8/76.

... I am restored to amiability. Not long after I had dropped the
letter to you into the box, the little page-boy came to me in the
drawing-room and brought me your letter. I was very glad to get it
but please don’t write in German characters for I can only make
doubtful shots at the w r ords.

Yes, I think Robertson was morbid and Stopford Brooke as a
brother clergyman somewhat similarly circumstanced exaggerates the
loneliness of his position. But we are all prone to weak lamentations.

I used to think myself an unhappily circumstanced man but when
I look back and compare my lot with that of others I find that nearly
all my sorrows have been of my own making and that I have had or
might have had all and more than all that I really wanted.

I v. anted food and I got it. I wanted a competence and I got more,
T warned power and got it, I wanted freedom of speech and thought
and I got them, I wanted health and I got it, I wanted distinction and
1 got--well quite as much as is good for me or as I deserved and more
than all I wanted woman’s *ove and I got that too,

140

MiN/sr^

Recording Angel

one goes into the London parks of a morning and se^

Ljfile sodden uncared for young men lying on the benclii_

frgro get an uneasy slumber, or when one comes home to one’s
club through St. Giles and sees wretchedness and rags and faces with
germs of beauty and gentleness in them which will never flower, one
asks what have I done that I should be so happy.

It’s all a great mystery but folding the hands or brooding will
never do any good so let us always get up again if we are downcast
and try to look and act pleasantly to others.

St. Moritz, 11/8/76.

It delights me that you know a little how I love you—for you do
know though you take a pleasure in making me demonstrative and
outspoken. I have a double sentiment as of a happiness attained and
a danger escaped in our marriage, because it would have been so easy
to have differed much or to have been indifferent. I have been trying
to analyse the feeling of affection and find it grows more binding as
one does so and sees the reasonable ground on which it rests.

lo this Henry answered:

London, 16/S/76.

Analysis is good at times but do not affect it too much. It is like
botanising on a mother’s grave, perhaps necessary sometimes, but not
to be made a practice of. Our mental and moral operations like our
digestions go on better the less we think about them.

While Henry delved in the dust of forgotten controversies in
London, Annette devoted herself mainly to her cure in St.
Moritz, to long walks and to reading. She played with the idea
of a book that she might write. She was not sure whedier it would
be philosophy or fiction, and she never got started. Her first

business was health, as her last letter to Henry in London told
him:

I hope I am what I feel a great deal better. I am pretty sure that
I hear rather better and know that walking has become a pleasure to
me. ... I have been thinking much about my book but I will not
give myself over to it till I have finished my cure. I still bathe every
day.

Henry’s last letter from London to St. Moritz was typical of
many that would follow.

India Called Them

22 August 18

Love,

I have already written you a letter to-day but I do not think it
was a very nice one and so I will write you another.

I am on the whole glad that I came over here and I think I have
gathered sufficiently valuable material also to justify the step. But the
sacrifice was greater than I thought it at the time and I fervently hope
that I may never feel called upon to leave you again. I am so much
better when beside you and I seem to deteriorate very rapidly when
I leave you who are in truth my guiding star and my staff on which
to lean. Or to give the simile a more local colouring I yrould call you
my Alpenstock only that you are not like that chiefly useful in descend¬
ing mountains (vide Murray’s Introduction) but are most valuable
when I wish to ascend or to stay myself from going down. Looking
back on my fortnight here I am pleased with some things and vexed
with others. I have really done the thing I came to do and have read
and thought Warren Hastings several hours each day and I have
declined amusements and visits to Dover, Culross or Paris (with
Mrs. Goldie). So far I am pleased and for this and other good results
I am indebted to your influence. On the other hand I have been
sometimes idle sometimes luxurious and often censorious.

But perhaps it is weak to indulge in this minute introspection and
what says Tennyson—

What keeps a spirit wholly true
To that ideal which he bears?

What record? Not the sinless years
That breathed beneath the Syrian blue:

So fret not, like an idle girl,

That life is dashed with flecks of sin.
Abide: thy wealth is gathered in,

When Time has sunder’d shell from pearl.

I was at Grindlay’s to-day and got the circular notes and also the
enclosed which will show you that the Fund subscription has been
paid up.

Our book is advertised in the Calcutta Englishman as on sale by
Thacker and Co. price fifteen rupees. So we are on the road and
should make our way in time.

A Mr. Rainy writing on Jessore in the July number of the Calcutta
Review refers in a postscript to my paper read at the Asiatic Society
and says that if I have proved the identity of Ciandecan and Dhumghat

142

MiN/sr^

Recording Angel

made an important contribution towards elucidating the 1
ifejSundarbans. I always told you that was the discovery wllfc
t would hand me down to posterity. But if it be one it is
marvellous that no one discovered it before for the thing seems very
clear.

I have been reading The Dilemma. It is a capital novel and I wish
I could get it for you. It is the very best Indian novel I have ever read
—truthful graphic and manly. It is a soldier’s novel, of course, and
a civilian’s novel or a native’s novel has perhaps yet to be written.
But I incline just now to the conviction that the heyday of the novel
is at an end.

The pulpit has had its day, and those of novels and newspapers are,
I think, coming to an end. Nobody nowadays reads leaders with
much attention and able editors are no longer the power they w r ere.
Personal influence, facta haud verba, and statistical observations are
the motive powers of the future. I am not hitting at your projected
novel. I am only doing what I hope always to do—writing to you
exactly as I feel at the moment. Don’t let my remarks go for too
much with you. If you feel called upon to write a novel follow your
star and prove that it is the proper thing to do in the way that Diogenes
proved the existence of motion. Solvitur ambulando.

I shall post this letter and then go for a walk. How I wish I was
with you again. But I have not long to wait and the journey will not
seem tedious or the railway hot and dusty for I will feel that every
shake of the carriage is bringing me nearer to you.

Henry, of course, did not walk over the passes on the way to
Annette, as he had walked over them when going away from her.
He came as fast as train and diligence could take him. The two
of them went on down the Inn Valley to Innsbruck and so to
Verona and Venice, to embark there on September 28th in the
s.s. Baroda . But this took them only to Port Said: there they
disembarked, crossed to Suez by land, and went on in another
ship which had waited two days for them, and reached Calcutta
on October 29th.

They reached it with no fixed destination beyond and waited
for orders. In the middle of November they “got orders for
Rangpur.” What was the nature of this place?

A younger contemporary of Henry’s v ho some ten years
later, by getting into the wrong train at a junction, found himself
there instead of on the way to Darjeeling, spoke of himself as

India Called Them

been “swept to the dismal station of Rangpur.” 1 Itl
dismal in 1876, before the railway. Rangpur, in the words
of the Official Ga^etteer^ “is a vast alluvial plain unrelieved by
natural elevations of any kind.” In that respect the district to
which Henry took Annette in 1876 was a replica of that to which
he had taken Jeanie in 1871. Rangpur was like Bakarganj also in
being dominated by great rivers and in the difficulties of transport.
Bakarganj, in Henry’s words, was more or less under water
every September and October; in Rangpur, says the Official
Gazetteer , more than a third of the total area is inundated during
the rains. Barisal, the chief town of Bakarganj, was 180 miles
east of Calcutta, and it took six days or more to reach it by water.
The town of Rangpur was about 230 ’miles due north of Calcutta,
but it took Henry and Annette five days to get there, by train,
river steamer and palki.

All the roads in 1871 w^ere of the 3rd class and practically
unbridged, and traffic was with difficulty carried on during the
rains. Railways had not yet been introduced. The most important
road then was the one from Rangpur to Kaliganj, a distance of
45 miles from the Brahmaputra. Government and private stores
were conveyed by steamer to Kaliganj and brought to Rangpur
from there by road.

This account by the Official Ga{ctteer , though dated to 1871,
was substantially true in 1876. Railways were on the point of
being introduced (on January 17, 1878, Henry w'ent to the
opening of the North Bengal Railway by Sir Ashley Eden) but
they were not yet in action. Henry and Annette, in 1876, had to
travel to Rangpur, as her diary records, by the route of Govern¬
ment stores.

November

23 Th. Not well. Left Calcutta for Goalundo. [This as on

later occasions no doubt meant a night journey by
train, without sleeping accommodation. Goalundo
is a port on the Brahmaputra about 150 miles
from Calcutta].

24 Fri. On board Mirzapore. [The passengers included

“Colonel L. conveying his wife’s body to Gow-
hatty for burial by her daughter.”]

* The Ritchie s in 1nSa , by Gerald Ritchie, chap. xvii.

144

MINISr^

28 Tue.

29 Wed.
Dec. 1 F.

Recording Angel

Shipping rice at Sariganj.

Reached Kaliganj. Took 15 hrs. to reach Rangpur,
where the “station” was away and the circuit-
house locked. Took possession of a room at Mr.
Glaisher’s. Servants went over to die circuit house.
Visited our house, a terrible tumble-down place. Mr.

Kelly in occupation.

Removed to our house.

Of Annette’s first Indian home no description remains. That
the account of it as tumble-down was not unfair is borne out by
a note in her diary a few months after taking over:

1877 May 21 Excessive rain. House leaking in all directions.

It used to be said of the house by guests that whenever they
came to dinner they expected to meet a cobra on the stairs. As
the Official Gazetteer put it: “Reptiles are abundant in the
Rangpur district . . . and are the 5 cause of frequent fatalities
when the inundations cause them to seek refuge in the higher
lands.”

The> district assigned to Henry included not only Rangpur
proper, about eighty miles by sixty, but also an outlying region
of Bogra to the south where Sessions trials were held four times
a year. Henry had to visit Bogra regularly for these Sessions,
and to visit other parts of his district from time to time.

A visit in those early days at Rangpur did not mean getting
into a train or a fast motor-car, to find a hotel awaiting one at
the far end. It meant an expedition on horseback or by carriage
or palki, with the way usually prepared beforehand by an advance
party of servants. Sometimes die state of the roads and die rivers
added excitement and danger to the journey. Sometimes the heat
made it advisable or necessary to travel by night and rest by day.
Sometimes Henry went alone; when he could he took Annette,
and the affair became a progress rather than a journey.

More often Henry went alone. Thus, in 1877, having been
gazetted a pukka judge as from March 6th, he was at Bogra four
times—in March, June, September and December, at Gyabanda,
Olipur and Kurigram in April, at Bhotmara in November and
Parbatipur in December. Each visit produced its crop of letters—

India Called Them

y about work and heat and books, but sometimes
c relations.

In one of the earliest of them, just two years after marriage,
the great earring controversy came to a head. Annette had
submitted to having her ears pierced but she had driven a hard,
indeed an unconscionable, bargain, diat Henry should give up
smoking. She now wrote to him at Bogra holding him to his
bargain. At first he put up a defence.

18/3/77.

I do not diink you are right in charging me with breaking a promise
for my understanding was that I was not to smoke so as to annoy you.
That agreement I have kept I think pretty faithfully and I did not
think it debarred me from smoking when I was away from you.
However as the matter is really a trifle and as the habit is one I am
better without I withdraw my resistance and shall be smokeless in
future. In saying this however I guard myself against making a
promise. It is only a declaration and as such is revocable or admits
of exceptions.

But Annette was the Recording Angel. She had kept his
written promise and sent it by return.

20/3/77 from Bogra.

As you insist on your pound of flesh or in other^ words on the
letter of your bond I have not a word to say. I must fulfil it to the
letter. I quite admit that I led you to believe that if you had your
ear:- pierced I would give up smoking altogether and I am sorry that
I have once or twice broken the compact. I will endeavour to be more
circumspect in future and though it is hard to be taxed by one s own
wife with dishonourable conduct I feel that I must submit to it because
the charge is legally justifiable.

Happily this treaty was regarded as subject to revision. “I
hope that your cigarettes do you good and that you think of
me sometimes over them,’’ Annette wrote to him a few years
later from Mussoorie. Though Henry never smoked much, and
in later life practically never touched either pipe or cigarette,
every now and again he was seen with a cheroot, but he always
wore with it an air of bravado, like an ex-schoolboy trying it on
with his headmaster.

A few extracts from other letters from Bogra about this time
serve to show the nature of Henry’s life and work.

146

MiNisr^

Recording Angel

Ay ■ .

— • 1 esterday was an awful day and all last night there was not

a breath of wind. So I lay in my bed with all the doors and windows

opened and listened to the striking of the hours and the flitting of the
bats till three in the morning when some god took pity on me and I
slept. 1 he waking hours were not unprofitable, however, for I thought
over a case of dacoity I had been trying and resolved to release a
young man with wild and startled eyes against whom the evidence
did not seem sufficient.

23/6/77.

The blessed rain came yesterday and continued all night and
to-day. . . . Everybody here looks ill except Slack. The Doctor
seems at death’s door, Coxhead looks used up and worn out, Rattray
debile and Dawson yellow. And yet they are a very temperate and
quiet living station.

24/9/77-

... I am moiling away here and hope to be through my sessions
to-day. ... I had Mr. Dawson to dinner yesterday. He is a melan¬
choly man though a good one and leads a cheerless life because he
can t afford to marry and thinks India unsuited to ladies.

26/9/77.

’ ' * * eavc l h' s evening for Jaipur. ... I have got three
Mahomedan minors under my charge and am exercised as to what I
should do with them. One of them at least is going to the devil here.

The Maulvi called to see me yesterday and we began speaking
about elephants. He offered me his for eight hundred rupees. It is a
young one about five years old. I said I would think about it. It is a
fine growing animal and would no doubt look well in our compound.

But can we afford a baby elephant as well as a Laetitia?

Laetitia, as will be recorded below, had made her appearance
three months before. Henry never rose to an elephant. He found
all the excitement he needed in some of his journeys on horse¬
back. Indeed, in Rangpur of the late 1870’s, train journeys were
so new as to be an excitement in themselves. Henry had the
pleasure of being the first passenger on a new piece of line, with
the added joy of travelling on the engine.

Kuarganj Tana, 28/9/77.

I hope that you got my telegram from Jaipur. I arrived there at
<5 a.m. having left Bogra at 7 p . m . on the previous evening. I found

WHlSTff

India Called Them

\ train did not start till 10.30 and so I lay down on my md
' my sleep out. At 2.30 I got to Saidpur and then I learned that
Mr. Jenner was just starting for Badarganj on an Engine. This was
too good an opportunity to be lost and so I went over to his house
and had something to eat and then we started off. It was the first
time in my life that I had ever ridden on an engine and I enjoyed it
amazingly. Being in front of everything and half in the open air made
one feel as if one had to do with the movement so that there was all
the excitement of rapid motion. The tender was in front of the engine
and the machinery of the engine behind, so that there was nothing to
distract the view. We came down to Parbatipur in twenty minutes
(it is eight miles) and the breeze blew strongly but not unpleasantly
in our faces as we scudded through the green paddy fields and saw
the goats and crows rush off the rails as we approached. From Par¬
batipur we came up to Badarganj and were quite pioneers for it was
the first time that an engine had gone up die whole way. So as Mr.
Jenner said I was his first passenger and I had the honour of opening
the line. At Badarganj I stayed with Mr, Jenner last night and dined
with him.

I have just had a big breakfast here in the Thana on the bank of
the swift-flowing Jubenaswari. My servant had a good breakfast for
me but Mr. Deverhill the sub-inspector has made it luxurious with
the addition of ham and egg. The servants will start for Rangpur
after they have had their dinner and I will get my tea from Mr.
Deverhill. The above will show you that I have fallen very consider¬
ably on my feet. I always say that I either fall on my feet or what is
next best tiling—diat I have fallen on my head. When I look back
on the last two years and a half of my life I feel that I have a great
deal to be thankful for and that it lias been the most satisfactory and
fruitful part of my life. All this is due to you who took the confusion
out of my life and kaleidoscoped the jarring fragments of thought
and action. Quae cum ita sunt, as Cicero says, it behoves us to be
up and doing and to try to make other people’s lives happy so far
as we can. And it is wonderful how daily and hourly we have oppor¬
tunities of doing good and of saying words in season.

Last night I was reading Miss Yonge’s life of Bishop Patterson and
at Saidpur I had a glimpse of a volume of selections from the writings
of George Eliot.

Henry never lost a chance of improving his mind by reading.
Bur occasionally he had a disappointment.

148

MiN/sr^

Recording Angel

■rfjL

Bogra,

^Commissioner left some Pioneers behind him
a letter from a London correspondent beginning: “In my last
I discussed the merits of Warren Hastings concerning whose prowess
there is considerable diversity of opinion.” I pricked up my ears and
began to regret not having seen the previous issue, when lo and
behold it was a horse that the idiot was writing about, the next words
being “but everybody knows that Monkshood is no Derby horse.”

• Bogra, 29/9/78.

I am just going to call on Mrs. Barber and Miss Taylor. I wish I
were back beside you and Letty. This is veiy dull society here. I
never meet another lady, my dear, without thinking how superior
you are to all other women and how fortunate I am in possessing you,

Bogra, 30 September 1878.

I have just been visiting the jail and the Dispensary. I am afraid
you will say Bogra is an expensive place when you hear I have sub¬
scribed Rs. 20 to a Dispensary verandah. But Dispensaries are a
weakness of mine and as I intend to give Rs. 200 from the Muraid
Estate I thought I was bound to give something of my own. . . .

I have my murder case to try to-day. . . .

Many thanks for the three novels which I see you have sent me.
I have been reading Roderick Random and Jane Eyre. Mr. Rochester
somehow suggests to me Sir Ashley Eden. . . .

All these and every other letter which she received from him
Annette kept and docketed. In marrying a second time there was
no doubt that Henry had domesticated the Recording Angel.
Annette had prepared herself for her teaching mission to India
by starting at once to learn Bengali and to attend a school for
governesses. She took her new profession of being married to
Henry with the same seriousness.

One side of this profession was literary writing and reading.
She had always read, but from Henry she learned to go on reading
even more and even after marriage: diere are very few letters
between them which do not refer to books. She had always some
languages and she set out to practise them with him and upon
him, learning to write as well as to speak Bengali, addressing
him on one and the same day from Hastings in French, Latin
and German (in the German script).

Another side of the new profession was domestic and social.

149

India Called Them

[ette had to become the manager of an Indian household
dispense its hospitality. She set out to spend Henry’s income
for him—with his full consent—and to record every rupee, anna
and pice of the spending. The books of account that she kept for
this purpose she described as “The Tools ot My Trade.” In
these she set out week by week every spending, combined the
weekly totals into months and analysed each six months’
expenditure under all its main headings of bazaar and stores,
rent, service, garden, travelling, dress, furniture, charities and
gifts, and other special items.

Henry’s official income at Rangpur was 1,825 rupees a month,
£2,160 a year, at ten rupees to the £. This was nett after de¬
duction of contributions to the pension fund. It was free of
income tax. In relation to the daily living expenses of food and
rent and service this salary was ample. In most cases it was
possible for those who received such salaries to save against their

return to Britain.

But there were three items to be taken into account on the
adverse side. First there were all the expenses of journeys and of
change of station. Having a family in Bengal meant sending the
mother and children for prolonged periods to hill stations. An
even more serious burden was the frequent change of station,
involving the buying and selling of furniture, carriages, horses
and other equipment. All such buying and selling leads ultimately
to loss.

Second, there was in Henry’s case a continuing liability to
help his older relations in Scotland. Something like one-seventh
of his annual salary in 1878 and following years was spent on
charities and gifts, and about half of this seventh was sent to
Scodand to help in maintaining his mother, his brother David,
and his sister Phemie.

Third, and affecting very directly both the cost of remittances
in the present and die possibility of saving for a future in
Britain, was the economic phenomenon known as the fall of the
rupee. A t the time of Henry’s appointment to India and for some
sixteen years later the rupee based on silver was the equivalent
of two shillings; ten rupees would buy one pound. From 1873
onwards a world-wide fall in the value of silver in relation to
gold began, and the rupee in relation to the pound sterling

150

Henry at about j 5

Recording Angel

il continually and disastrously less valuable. By 1880 _

/no longer two shillings but about one shilling and e. 0 ___

'? say twelve rupees to the pound. Five years later it had
come down to one shilling and fourpence, or fifteen rupees to the
pound, and still the fall continued till at one point, after Henry’s
retirement from India, the rupee was worth little more than one
shilling. This, of course, had a very direct bearing on all remit¬
tances sent home, whether for the maintenance of older depen¬
dants or for the maintenance of children or as a means for saving
lor old age at home. The fall of the rupee entered vitally into
some of die decisions which Henry and Annette came to make.
But in the Rangpur days most of these decisions were still in die
remote future.

There was, as Annette knew, a third side to her new profession.
At the time of their interchange about smoking in March 1877,
Henry had just had a step up in his profession, being gazetted a
full judge as from March 6th. By this time also it was clear that
Annette had embraced her new profession completely, in all its
recognized branches. Henry and Annette’s first child was born
at Rangpur on July 10, 1877, and was named in Latin and
anskrit Laetitia Santamani, happiness and jewel of tranquillity.
She was named, not christened. None of Henry and Annette’s
children was ever baptized.

MiNfsr^

1 woke very early and as soon as it was light went into the
nursery . . . . Seeing the love towards one grow is like
standing in an early morning garden and seeing a whole
pasture full of flowers open round one . . . .

I abhor the vacuum caused by your absence which neither
equations nor Letty fills . . . .

I do not want anything except to be with you and to feel
well again . . . .

Annette from Shillong to Henry in Rangpur,

October 15, September 26, October 2, 1879.

Though Rangpur be a plain it is uphill work living in it.

Henry from Rangpur to Annette in Shillong,

August 4, 1879.

I don't believe in any paid official ever winning the heart
of the Bengalees •

Henry from Rangpur to Annette in Shillong,

August 24, 1879.

1 sometimes wonder how I believe anybody , seeing that so
many cart-loads of lies have been shot into me for the last
twenty years.

Henry from Rangpur to Annette in Shillong,

October 18, 1879.

My dear Love: When you brought your family to Shillong
did you ever suppose you were putting them into the
trap it is.

Annette from Shillong to Henry in Rangpur,

October 7, 1879.

miSTffy.

Chapter IX

THE FAMILY BEGINS AND SEPARATES

L AETITIA SANTAMANI, reduced to Letty or trans¬
lated to Joy, was born at Rangpur, in the house beloved
of cobras, on July io, 1877. There followed, in the same
house at Rangpur, a son, William Henry, born on March 5,
1879; he was William after his mother’s father and Henry after
his own father, but in early days he was “Bhai,” or “Bhaia,”
representing either the Hindustani for brother or an ayah’s attempt
to say “boy.” Third, on September 15, 1880, when Henry had
moved to the only healthy and cheerful station of his career—
at Bankipur near Patna—came another daughter, Annette Jeanie
officially, Jeannette semi-officially, Tutu in practice.

For nearly six years from 1877 till the spring of 1883, when
Henry took his second long furlough to Britain, this growing
family were in India; in Rangpur and Bankipur on the river
plains, or in hill refuges from heat and fever—at Darjeeling or
Mussoorie in the Himalayas, at Shillong in the Assam hills. In
this and the two following chapters this period of about six years
is treated as a whole, presenting the background of European
infancy in India. The background has six main features:
Journeys; Partings; Sickness; Servants; Snakes and other
plagues; and Station Society. Behind the background is always
the idea of The Road Home.

The first three of these features—Journeys, Partings and
Sickness—are relatively more prominent at Rangpur where
Letty and Willy were bom. Servants and Station Society are
relatively more important at Bankipur where Tutu was born.
But all five—and the remaining feature also of Snakes and other
plagues—are common to those and other places. In illustrating
this background, it has proved convenient to make a few refer¬
ences to later periods, particularly to the year 1885 which Henry
and Annette spent at yet a third river station, Faridpur. It is
the next district up the great river from Bakarganj and
proved to have much in common both with Bakarganj and with
Rangpur.

*53

India Called Them

lonthly

! conditions under which Annette had to bring her chr
le world can be illustrated by the fact that her monthly
nurse on each occasion had to be brought from Calcutta. The
journey in 1877 was elaborately organized. On June 27th a
“chuprassi went with cart and palki to Kaliganj to meet Mrs.
Toomey.” On the following day Mrs. Toomey left Calcutta,
and five days later duly made Rangpur. “Mrs. Toomey arrived
at three in the morning; her cart in die evening.” As the baby
did not arrive till July xoth, on this occasion Mrs. Toomey was
in good time. On the next occasion, though Mrs. Toomey had
been summoned for March 1st, 1879, arrived on March 6th,
a day after the baby had been born. There is no mention of
a doctor on either occasion, but one was available as part of
the official medical service. Annette’s accounts show a regular
subscription of Rs. 210 per half-year for medical attendance
at Rangpur. But this was only for the few. One of Henry’s later
letters, from Bankipur, records a visit from an Indian lady, Roma
Bai, who had been collecting information as to the deaths of
Indian mothers in unattended childbirth and contemplated
proceeding to England to call attention to this evil.

The coming of children brought experience of a new kind of
journey and longer partings, for Rangpur in hot weather was no
place for them or their mother. So, when the first child Letty
was two months old, Annette and she were sent off to Darjeeling
—8,000 feet up in the Himalayas—and stayed there for six weeks.
When the second child Willy was less than two months old,
Annette and her two children were sent off to another hill
station, Shillong, 5,000 feet up in Assam, and stayed there for
more than six months. When the third child Tutu was born in
September 1880, Henry was stationed in a healthier district at
Bankipur and it seemed possible at first to avoid such expeditions.
But the Indian climate had its way. After an attempt to combine
health and companionship in a sea-voyage of the whole family to
Australia in May and June of 1882, Annette was compelled by a
serious illness of Tutu to surrender and took her off to Mussoorie.
This was yet another hill station 7,000 feet up in the Himalayas.
This time the two elder children were left behind under the
charge of Henry and a German governess—the first of many
Frauleins—while Annette and Tutu were absent for 2% months.

*54

MiNfsr^

The Family Begins and Separates

)f these escapes to the hills involved a ferocious jo|
Solved a separation that was felt bitterly by both pa
to a vigorous argument designed on Annette’s side to
shorten the separation by bringing Henry also to the hills, and
on Henry’s side to give reasons why he should stick it out in the
plains: on the first of the three occasions Annette won, and on
the last two Henry.

Annette’s journey widi her two-months-old baby from Rangpur
to Darjeeling—about ioo miles as the crow flies—took all but
five days. The narrow-gauge mountain railway to Darjeeling
had not been constructed in 1877 and Rangpur itself was not on
a railway in action. Annette’s journey began at T.30 a.m. by
palki one Saturday morning in September, and ended just before
midnight on Tuesday by tonga at Darjeeling. The servants had
been sent ahead three days before Annette started.

Some of Henry’s letters during this separation have been given
in the last chapter to show the conditions of his work in tire
plains. The letters that follow show more of his work and how
after argument he surrendered and went up to Darjeeling.

Rangpur, 1/10/77.

I am delighted to hear that Letty takes after me in the matter of
losing her shoe. Perhaps some day she will lose one and a Prince will
pick it up. . . . You need not be jealous of anything for I am only
a machine and do little except cases.

Tuesday morning.

Rain, rain, rain. Very few servants have come but such as have
appeared have got their wages.

6/10/77.

I am beginning to doubt the expediency of my coming up to
Darjeeling this month, and would like to have your opinion on the
subject. The facts are these, as we say in beginning our decisions.

In the first place I am well and have no need or wish to go to
Darjeeling except to see you and Letty. . . .

Secondly my Sessions already go up to the 15th or 16th and I
don t think I can leave this much before the 20th. It would take me
about three days to go and three days to come down and I would
have to be here on the 7th in time for the courts opening on the 8th.
I would therefore not get much of the hills and would lose six days
which I could apply to literary work.

155

India Called Them

irdly I am going to give Rs. ioo to the Madras faming
aey to and from Darjeeling would cost, including Mrs. Houglnon*s~“
( 5 arding charges, about rupees 300 and I doubt if it would be right
to spend this just now if it can be avoided.

Fourthly there would be the pain of leaving you and Letty again.

Fifthly I want to look after the repairs of the house and garden and
to finish Warren Hastings.

Sixthly I feel shy of the gay groups at Darjeeling.

. . . Now dear Annette please consider all these and let me know
w r hat you think. The reasons which weigh most with me are the
second and third.

I miss you very much and would gladly join you but it would only
be for a few days and I don’t think it would be right at this time of
public distress to spend £30 on one’s personal gratification. With you
the case is totally different for you had to go for your own health
and that of the baby. I would far rather pay off the Academy than
spend the money on palki daks.

And now to other matters. . . . The doctor was here last evening
and we drew some resolutions for to-morrow’s meeting. 1 I am to
take the Chair and open proceedings. The vakils have already given
me Rs. 110. The exodus has begun and many Babus have departed.
The Sub-Judge brought his family here at considerable expense and
is now taking them back in a boat the hire of which was 60 rupees!
Tiie Translator is not going home, because “God has blessed him
with a son.” The Nazir is doubtful about going, as his wife has
prospects of replacing the child who died.

The mate bearer had strong fever last night and has had quinine
and castor oil. The jungle is being cleared and the garden ploughed.

I have been having a talk with the doctor about the Rangpur Drainage
scheme. It seems it would come to Rs. 30,000. I think we should
strain every nerve to get this. Livesay talks of a meeting but he is
terribly slow. Perhaps Glazier will do more when he comes back.

I said to the doctor we should subscribe a thousand rupees to the
scheme if it was floated. Of course we would not pay the money all
at once.

By the way, if the doctor gets the Campbell’s Medical College
where will you have Letty’s brother brought forth? You might
occupy yourself now in excogitating a name for him. I should like
a name expressive of courage mental and physical, though Barnabas
which means a son of consolation I believe, is good also. Paul is a
good name.

1 To raise funds for relief of famine in Madras.

*56

The Family Begins and Separates

j)ose the longer you stay in the hills the more likely the e^ _
noticed will be. I was reading the life of Schopenhauer, or
rather some account of him in the Revue des Deux Mondes last night.
He maintained that a man got his intellect from his mother and his
character from his father. When he was met by opposing instances he
cynically replied Pater semper incertus.

Schopenhauer had a high idea of the importance of Latin and said
the difference between a man who knew Latin and a man who did
not was the difference between a man who knew how to read and a
man who did not.

7/10/77.

I am going to our famine meeting in another hour when I will
make such remarks as my nervousness allows me. I don’t suppose we
shall have a large meeting and our subscriptions will be but small but
it is our duty to do what we can. The doctor is to move the first
resolution, that for collecting subscriptions. Yes, my letters have been
very stupid I know, but my head has been in a turmoil with work for
the last fortnight. To-day I have not had much rest for I had to go
to the Library to arrange about the meeting. I finished my first
Sessions case yesterday and to-morrow the case is not a heavy one
though the circumstances are painful being that of Collier’s syce
striking a man in the face and killing him. The cases extend up to the
16th inst. I am going to try to take them easy for it is the driving
through them that hurts me. Four or five hours’ work a day is good
but sitting till six or seven p.m. knocks the life out of one. . . . The
mate Bearer has had fever but is getting better.

8/10/77.

e had our Famine Meeting yesterday and the speeches were duly
made. We collected Rs. 689 and hope to get much more. Livesay gave
Rs. 100 and so did I.

I don t think of you as being gay at Darjeeling but I think of you
as gaining strength there and as being in the right place there. I am
sure our baby is better there than here and I want her to stay up all
November and then be taken to Bogra and shown off. . . .

Would you like another servant? I could send you the Darwan.
I am sorry to hear that the Ayah has not been behaving well. The
doctor showed me your letter about his boys. ... I hope he will get
the Campbell’s Medical School,but I fear not.His application, of course,
is a secret. If I were up at Darjeeling just now I might perhaps speak a
word to the L.G. on the subject.,.. But Sessions are inexorable.

P.S. Go about on pony back or in a carnage and take Lctty with
you. Swiss-milk her if site drains you too much.

*57

India Called Them

een this letter and the next Henry received AnrJ
ent on his reasons for not coming to Darjeeling,
oted them all decisively and won her first—and last—victory
in this matrimonial game. On the next occasion she got him to
come half-way to meet her on the way down from Shillong.
On the third occasion he stayed firmly in the plains to welcome
her on return from Mussoorie. But her first time in Darjeeling
was their first parting and Darjeeling, was near—only two days’
journey for Henry.

Rangpur, 19/10/77.

I think this is about my last day of work though I must go to¬
morrow too for an hour or two. I have finished my Sessions but I
have a Criminal Appeal to-day. It is jfainful sometimes to think of
the numbers of people one has to shut up in jail. . . .

To how many people must one appear stern and hateful and even
unjust. The thought of being loved by everyone and of not having
an enemy in the world is a dream which fades away very early. To
be respected is a better and more attainable ambition and yet how
many sweet and loveable natures fail of that. And even strong
characters cannot always win respect, for poverty often covers them
with ridicule and their own passions leap their barriers sometimes and
make them do base things. I suppose we should try for nothing,
neither for love nor for respect, but steer right onward and leave love
and respect to flow towards you.

For the first time during these weary weeks I have read a little and
last night I was much interested in three delightful gossiping articles
in an old volume of the Revue about the Countess of Albany (the
Pretender’s wife) and Alfieri. You must read them when you come
down. . . .

Our reforms and repairs are going on, and Beni is working hard
to have everything ready for Madam. To-day we are removing the
stores downstairs. The shelves will stay where they are and will be
very useful for books, especially for Book Club books. A new fowl
house is being made, i.e. a lattice work is being made in front of the
pukka fowl house. The mehta is coming with his family to live in
the compound and will have a house. The dhobi will also have a
hotlse and then another great reform is to be inaugurated, viz., the
making of a privy for the servants. All the jungle in the compound
has been cleared and the vegetable seeds are doing well.

I intend to travel by cart to Saidpur and to take Ram Yad with me.
I si .all drive to Nesbetganj, and then get on the cart.

158

The Family Begins and Separates

2I / I0 /7 ^

>e to set out for Darjeeling and you to-morrow evening. The
irer accompanies me and I go to Parbatipur so as not to sponge too
frequently on Mr. Jenner. . . .

I have been recreating myself with the perusal of Friendship’s
Garland. It is like anchovy toast, or the best taste of a medlar, sharp
and invigorating. I think I shall order some things from the G.E.,
your letter notwithstanding. . . . We shall have to give some dinners
during the cold weather. That second-class sherry of the G.E. is
detestable.

I am delighted to hear of your resuming literature. If you and I
bothwrite, and if-we lead calm and restful lives we may in time come
to have influence, and be like the shadow of a great rock in a weary
land.^ I am persuaded that we are in our right place here, and that we
should not be readily moved from it. We’ll dwell apart like stars and
not meddle with the jarring wheels of the Executive.

“/10/77•

I set off this evening at 7 p.m. I am travelling comfortably with
my servant though, of course, he will only accompany me as far as
Jalpaiguri and come on thereafter by cart. . . .

The Darwan will look after die alterations including the white¬
washing. ... I have given him Rs. 100 and told him to pay the
servants. . . .

I enclose a copy of my order to the G.E. Hotel. I am afraid you
will think it rather magnificent but I like to have a full house even if
we don’t use the tilings.

Henry’s journey to Darjeeling took him just over two days.
He stayed ten days, during most of which Annette had fever, and
so he was fortunately at -hand to assist on the journey back by
tonga, dandy, train, trolley and dog-cart. Her diary records:

Nov. 4 Sun. Left Darjeeling in a tonga, with bearer and ayah.
Roads rather alarming.

5 Mon. Left Kurseong. H. on pony, I in dandy via
Pacheel, a fine road, half cart, half short cuts.

<5 Tue. Left Si liguri at night —fever and sickness most of

night. Letty slept cosily.

7 Wed. Very unwell. Left Jalpaiguri at 7 a.m. by train;

Parbatipur by trolley at 2 p.m. (dr.) Bakargan;
with Doctor G. by dog-cart, reached home at
8 p.m.

misT/ff

India Called Them

r which it is not perhaps surprising that Annette s
pent the next four days in bed. But after that she was up*

>ut “getting house in order which white-washers had inverted.”

The journey of ioo miles to Darjeeling with one baby in
1877 had taken five days. The journey to Shillong two years
later with two infants took twice as long, but -was fortunately
accompanied by Henry, while their house at Rangpur was
occupied by a locum tenens , Mr. Campbell. As the crow flies,
Shillong lies about 160 miles due cast of Rangpur. To get there
in 1879 involved first \ fifty-mile journey by road to Dhubri
on the Brahmaputra, crossing on die w r ay by a ferry one of its
major tributaries, the Teesta, as well as smaller rivers; second, a
journey of about 150 miles by steamer up the Brahmaputra to
Gauhati; last, another road journey of sixty miles to die foot of
the Assam Hills, and up die hill to Shillong. Annette, with her
two infants and a nurse, began this expedition on Thursday,
May 1st, and reached Shillong ten days later, on Sunday, May nth.
The first part of the journey by road was done in palkis, covered
sedan chairs each carried by four men. This took longer than
planned, because at one of die intermediate stations no bearers
were waiting, so the party had to spend the night there till
bearers could be collected; they reached Dhubri, fifty miles from
home, on the third day of travelling, and stayed another night.
The next day, being Sunday, Annette paid calls on the station
and at night boarded the steamer which after “a beautiful voyage
up the river” delivered them two days later at Gauhati. The
final road journey was accomplished in a variety of wheeled
conveyances—tonga, tom-tom, tonga again and for one part of
it, on die level, Henry and Annette’s own trap which had been
sent on in the charge of servants. Including a day spent in resting
at Ningpo this sixty miles took the better part of five days.
Annette summed up her experiences in her diary as follows:

The journey already formidable was made doubly so by the
new metalling of die roads. The road itself is broad and safe
though not to the timid eye. It was a most costly trip—some
600 Rupees in all and most fatiguing.

Annette may liave had timid eyes but she was not a timid
person: as she showed whenever occasion arose, she was as

160

The Family Begins and Separates

is possible fearless, physically and morally. That shl
iggerate the risks of Indian travel in 1879 was shown - Dy
jnry’s experiences when, after two months in Shillong, he left
her and made his way back by himself to Rangpur. Though he
left on July 21st it was the 28th before he was able to report his
arrival.

Ningpo, 3 p.m., 21/7/79-

Just a line to say that we have arrived here safely. The tonga is
comfortable and the road much better than when we came. But the
joltings are considerable and I should have been sorry to have had
a baby in my arms. We went over the bank once before getting out
of Shillong and had to save ourselves by jumping out.

Rangpur, 28/7/79.

I got here last night at 1 a.m. after a very fatiguing journey. We
got to Dhubri in one day and next morning at day-light I started in
the little steamer for Kurigram. We got there in good time (9 a.m.,
I believe) but the tonga service was slow. The roads were bad, the
horses not overgood and the distance too great; so we did not catch
the ferry steamer or the train and had to cross in an open boat. It took
us about two hours and I have seldom suffered more from the sun.
At 4 or s I got to Gazirhat Bungalow and there I got cool and had
some milk. At about 7 p.m. I started from there in a bullock cart and
got safely here. The Darwan reports all well.

I had fever most of yesterday and this did not improve matters
but to-day I am all right again. Campbell’s tonga service would never
do for a lady. You have to drive yourself. The tonga is uncovered
except for a big umbrella held by the syce, and the road is bad. Once
the horses got frightened, I think at the shadow of the umbrella, and
went over the bank and firmly planted the tonga in the ditch. Nothing
broke, however, and we did not fall down.

30/7/79.

I shall now try to write you a letter though I am still very shaky.
I brought the fever with me from Gauhati but Campbell’s tonga and
the raft on the Teesta worsened matters. I did Cutcherry on the
Monday well enough but the evening and night were not hilarious.
There was a comer or a difficulty of some kind that I could not get
round. In that I was less successful than the mosquitoes. They did
after two or three hours reconnoitring, get round a comer or other¬
wise get the better of their enemy (as the Bengali word for curtains
means) and effectually routed sleep. In the morning the doctor came

161

misT^

India Called Them

fgL

e me medicine. I did not go to Court to-day and now!
^QtjJjeVer and am only weak. I have no doubt I shall be all right in a
ay or two.

Our garden is full of jungle, and I have ordered a clearance to be
made. I fancy that the Darwan has many a story to tell me about the
Campbells but that he suppresses them in merciful consideration to
my weakness. What else Campbell has done I do not know but at
all events he has left his mark for some time on the “Judicial.” She
is fat enough and all right in essentials but it seems that the whip
broke and that Campbell jabbed her with the tin end. The result is
that the respectable quadruped got two or three small sores about her
back-bone which however have now healed. I have no doubt that
she will henceforth have a low opinion of Joint Magistrate Judges.

I must say that as far as I have seen no damage of any kind has been
done to our house by the Campbells, so I suppose she must be a good
woman.

30/7/79.

... I am very glad to hear that you and the children are getting
on so well and I hope and trust that you will not endanger your or
their health by a premature return to Rangpur. It is not that I don’t
miss you and that I don’t feel lonely here. But I want you not to run
any more risks. Look at my own case. It was the sun on the 27th
that brought out my fever but I got it at Gauhati if not on the road
down, and yet as far as I know I committed no imprudence on the
way. Then the road will get worse and the liability to fever greater
every week until October. I quite enter into all you say about wishing
to take charge of your home again, but your own and the children’s
health should take precedence over every other consideration.

As this letter of Henry’s forecasts, escape from Shillong
proved for Annette even more difficult than the journey there.
But the account of this must be postponed till the story has been
told of what she found there. Annette had taken herself and her
babies to Shillong for health; she met nearly fatal disease.

Shortly after arriving in Shillong, Annette found herself laid
low for nearly a week with violent fever, while Lotty had
dysenteric diarrhoea. Then came warning of a greater danger.

June

9 Mon, Got a circular of precautions about cholera.

13 Fri. Mrs. Ridgeway’s little boy died of cholera.

j 4 Sat. Mrs. Badgeley’s boy of 2 died of cholera, H, went
to the funeral in the starlight.

162

misT/tr

The Family Begins and Separates

tte wrote across this page of her diary a note of hov^
came upon them.

§L

Cholera is said to have been brought to the station by Captain
A. of the Survey from Shillong. His coolies were dying on the
road—4 in one bungalow compound died (at T.) and he neverthe¬
less brought some express coolies into the station and with them
cholera. It had spread on die 14th to Burra Pane where 7 people
died—was in the regiment and bazaar.

For another week Annette, with her two precious babies at
risk, went about the station, without doubt observing the
prescribed precautions, but one of her rides took her through a
wood where dead victims lay unburied, and on the night of
Monday, June 23rd, she was taken ill. The account which later
she wrote across two pages of her diary runs:

I had a terrible illness, Dr. O’Brien saying that for 14 days I
lay in danger of my life. I lost all knowledge of things, and was
full of delirious fancies. Captain Williamson sent me ice daily ...
and I was carefully nursed by my husband and Mrs. Toomey.
They, I am thankful to say, escaped the contagion and my little
children were also most mercifully preserved. This must have
been due to the great care of the doctors and nurses in sanitary
matters. Henry slept in my room through the whole illness.

Then on July 8th, a fortnight from the beginning:

About to-day recovered consciousness i.e. began to lose my
delirium, and to know something of my illness of which my
earliest notion had been that I had been poisoned.

Recovery once begun was rapid. A fortnight later, on July
21st, Henry felt able to leave her. In another fortnight Annette
was playing badminton, and began to take part in all the life of
the station: chaperoning a friend to a Ball at the Assembly Rooms;
riding and driving out and having occasional accidents; collecting
station gossip and retailing it to Henry; reporting to him a not
rare opinion that he was to be the Assam Valley judge; studying
algebra; having trouble with the milk supply and her servants;
and. rejoicing in her children.

Shillong, 28/8/79.

There has been such a golmal here about the cow. The milkman
took it away but $he truth of the affair I. cannot find out. However,

163

India Called Them

told him that if he takes it without 15 days’ notice I shSI
iOthing for this month. Does it not show the sweet dispos
e man that he never thought of the children ? He seems to have
quarrelled with the servants, but that is not my affair.

8/10/79.

I have been to the 42nd Badminton: played three games and won
in all. Then most people migrated to the Res. and Cap. Williamson
drove me over in his tandem. It is a pretty sight to see a tandem but
does not seem particularly safe. Then we went and skated and very
agreeable it is to feel one’s skating “legs” on again. Then Capt. W.
drove me home. I go to breakfast there to-morrow. I think I am very
dissipated, do not you? But I shall return contentedly to my solitude
a deux do not fear. I think I am on very good terms with most of
Shillong now. . . .

I5/W79*

I awoke very early and as soon as it was light went into the nursery.
I am fond of getting my chota hazree with the pets and of seeing their
dewy newly opened eyes and of getting their pretty greetings. “Am
mammako pia karta” sounds so sweet, and “Good morning, dear
mamma” also. Seeing the love towards one grow is like standing in
an early morning garden and seeing a whole pastureful of flowers
open round one. One after one delicate blossom opens and every
vacant space gets full of beauty. A little child is at first like a flowerless
garden. ... I think of pale dainty delicate flowers always in con¬
nection with Joy—-when taken on her mental side— she has such
sw'eet caressing ways. Thank goodness, she has riotous sturdy peony
ways, too, but her little tendernesses are very graceful. Boy is better
and active.—Dearest! please try not to dislike nurse. . . .

Your letter to-day makes me very happy—I too want to hold on
a r ; long as I can and be with you and the cldldren as long as nature
let> me. It was a curious chance which married us, was it not? Sceptics
in many tilings we had somehow an increasing faith in one another.

The first fruit of this union of sceptics, the unbaptized 2J-
} ear-old Letty, *w^s already being taught to pray:

6 / 9 / 79 .

I wish you had heard Joy to-night saying after me “I want to be
a good girl and then Papa will love me.” This is her first form of the

164

The Family Begins and Separates

aspiration. We sent you kisses and called “h 5

of prayer-
(vey them,
have just worked out that sum.

§L

3 7 4 — 2ox

------ — o

I — 2X I + 4 X 2 — I

I get the answer o for the numerator all right but I do not see why
you say sub: the den:—and do not think o remains. I think that no
num: remaining the common den: “just falls away”—i.e.

——--- == o

I — 2X X I -f~ 2X X 4X Z — I

Sunday. The first half of a note for Rs. 400 reached me to-day in
an open envelope which looked as if it had never been closed. Thank
you for it.

The unbaptized baby William, having escaped the name
Barnabas which Henry had proposed for him eighteen months
before he was born and having recovered from vaccination, was
wholly unregenerate:

3 and 12/10/79.

Baby has recovered and is now screaming his delight at touching
the fender, his screams being varied by violent rattling on your rattle.
He is a most independent baby and suggests by his manner to me
that he never had a mamma.

Don t expect to see an intellectual looking son. Prepare yourself for
a red rough boy.

Annette at Shillong occupied herself also in less usual ways
than baby worship and the social and domestic round. One
occupation, as the letter just quoted shows, was algebra. She
mixed kisses and equations in her letters to Henry, and he nobly,
though not successfully, wrestled with the latter after bis day’s
work in exhausting Rangpur. He always expressed great admira¬
tion for mathematical studies combined with inability for them.

Another occupation of Annette’s was reading. The gaieties
and gossip of Shillong left less time for that than usual, but she
challenged Henry’s description of Swift’s Stella as a waiting-
maid; she followed him in reading of Kingsley and Lecky. On

165

misr^

India Called Them

l e she passed the somewhal unusual judgment that it
Writable mine of instruction, comfort and guidance for
women of small means and hard work.”

Yet another activity was a letter to an Indian paper, Brahmo
Public Opinion . Annette sent this first to Henry to send on for
publication or not, as he thought right. He sent it on and it was
published. The letter is not worth exhuming to-day, but the
treatment of it illustrates the relations of Henry and Annette.
On this, as on later occasions, he recognized her right of inde¬
pendent judgment on Indian problems, whether he agreed with
that judgment or not. Annette, w r hen she first came to India, had
been at least as much on the side of Indians against alien Govern¬
ment as Henry. But she did not stay there as he did.

Shillong, / 9/79.

. . . Bengalis ought to like those of us who work with them
socially and I think do not dislike us—but it is not given to many to
have the magnanimity Dr. Ghose once expressed to me—in answer
to a remark that one could hardly expect the English to be liked in
India. He said: “Why not? We know that they are as a race superior
and can teach us much. Why not like them?” Envy and the cen¬
soriousness of (according to modem lights) inferiority, with the
irritation of wanting power they could not yield—are enough to
make the Calcutta Babus dislike us. I believe per contra Ishbanda
and Kakina and other smaller Mofussil men would not feel these
things and could I believe feel real friendship for English people who
treat them as they deserve. But as for “liking,” as we among ourselves
use the word, the same class of Babus, do we like them and on your
rule can they like us ?

I don’t mind confessing to you or them that I think their clamour
for gov: appointments combined with their laziness in what concerns
actual good—independence for themselves and commercial or other
prosperity for their country—simply deserve contempt. The agitation
seems to me to have originated in the idle newspaper set. Even the
man who has gone to England, L. M. Ghosh is (probably) a com¬
paratively unemployed man.

Henry’s answer to this was one of firm dissent:

I don’t quite agree with you about the Civil Service Agitation,
England ias beer) unju r ;f, i.e. she has delayed justice. I look upon the

166

Ml UlSTff

The Family Begins and Separates
for retrenchment as the most hopeful lever we have g<

raiding of the Bengalees.

<8L

Henry and Annette came to differ ever more openly on racial
issues. But because each recognized the right of the other to
independent opinion, this difference never touched their feelings.
On Annette’s letter to Bra/imo Public Opinion , Henry made plain
that he did not agree with it all. “But it is far better, as Maurice
once said, that contending principles and views should come out
in the open instead of stabbing at one another in the dark or only
skirmishing.” And Annette, however she might differ from
Henry on some public issues, never failed to play her part in
keeping and adding to their hosts of Indian friends.

Annette’s six months in Shillong were her first long separation
from Henry. While she was throwing her renewed energies into
the social life of the Assam Hills, he sweltered in the river plains.
He made the most of the limited society of the station: of the
collector Livesay, bachelor and bon vivant; of the missionary
Ringwood with his string of children, his disregard for all events
outside Rangpur and his Sabbatarian objection to Sunday

badminton; of the red-nosed traffic official R- , and his dull

good wife, happy because she did not realize how hard was her
lot; of the English doctor till he left, and thereafter of his Bengali
successor who posed to Henry’s Indian servants the embarrass-
ing problem of whether they should call him a Sahib or a Babu.
Henry tormented himself with wondering whedier or not he
should take determined steps to seek promotion or transfer from
Rangpur, screwing himself up to write to Cockerell, the Secretary
to the Bengal Government and then regretting that he had done
so. He discussed anxiously with Annette how much they ought
to pay the doctor who had seen her through the cholera; proposed
Rs. 500, to which she countered with Rs. 300 as ample, and
finally sent through her Rs. 400 which the doctor described as a
thumping fee.” Henry was never one to save money except on
himself.

He enjoyed himself improving the house and the garden
against Annette’s return and resumption of her sceptre. All the
time he went on working without limit of hours when there was

167

misTfy

India Called Them

t& be done; making or assuming work for himself wj
/as none; rejoicing in trees and rivers and mountain views;
ternating between exhaustion and recovery; reading, reading,
reading; writing every day or twice a day to Annette,

Rangpur, 31 / 7 / 79 -
Morning.

I am all right only I don’t sleep, but that was to be expected. I shall
get to Cutcheny and do some work.

I am glad to hear that Letty remembers her Papa. I am very glad
to hear of her mixing with other children. Half of my miseries and
some of my sins are due to solitary or at least purely family up¬
bringing. Mill and Buckle and other philosophers may say fine things
about eccentricity but to ordinary mortals it is a cause of much sorrow.

Rangpur, 31 / 7 / 79 -
Evening.

Still free from fever and beginning to enjoy life again. In evening
I walked out and found the Rs just going out in their new purchased
dog-cart, Mrs. R. looking blooming and Mr. R. blooming nowhere
but at the tip of a Bardolphian nose. No change in Rangpur, says
Mrs. R, except that it is duller than ever. Livesay, whom I have not
seen, is reported to be fattening daily. The new doctor is a Bengali
pure and simple, a mild gentleman who is afraid of his patients and
talks in hyperboles, e.g. that there are two lacs of people in Dacca,
that ten lacs attended Dr. Simpson’s funeral there, etc. His wife is a
halfwayhouse lady, i.e. speaks English and thinks Bengali. She has a
fierce temper, as I suspect not a few of these Bengali matrons have....
By i !ie way, I saw the Fisher baby at Dhubri and a very jolly baby
she is now. The husband is a Cambridge man and talks nonsense. I
did so too at his age, especially if there was a sapient Judge in the
company. . . .

Rangpur is a hole, and no mistake. I awoke in my fever the other
night and said: What—have I lost the Delectable Mountains and is
it my fate again to drag my horse and myself by swamps and jungle
and then to my cabin repair? Am I to have no sight of a church going
belle (Selkirk improved) and no talk except shop?

But yet, hole though it is, or perhaps because it is, we have got
fashioned to it somehow and I am doubtful about changing. Chiefly,
I admit, because I don’t think we should incur the expense it would
invoh e. If you and the children keep well here, and we can get to
Darjeeling easily, why should we remove? Let the voice of the
mountain answer.

168

The Family Begins and Separates

kve got to the end of one week. I am all right after my fever and
Campbell has left no arrears. These things and the fact that it is a
beautiful moonlight night and that I have a good punkah pulled over
me are all to the good. The other side of matters we won’t go into
lest it kick the beam. I suppose you and I feel about equally dull at
this time (8 p.m.) and that we both try to grapple with our doom and
to grin and bear. It’s dogged as does it, says Trollope’s labourer, and
I am sure that poor Mrs. Toomey often acts on that maxim in the
sweltering and enervating heats of Calcutta and among discourage¬
ments manifold. . . .

The jungle clearing proceeds vigorously. The two almond trees
are noble as ever and the Lawn is in good order. . . .

Our sheep has lambed and it is reported and shrewdly suspected
among the wise heads of the neighbourhood that our cow has
wandered afield and that, Europa-like, she has found a bull. The
Darwan will not commit himself on so important a matter. He only
gives what he hears. The cow is certainly stout and as wicked as ever
about running at one. . . .

4/8/79.

. . . The amiability of the Bengal Govt, exceeds belief. Without
asking they have sent me a letter granting me four extra days. I must
write and thank somebody. Have you begun Lecky yet. ... I have
taken over the book club but have not yet understood how. it stands.

4/8/79.

1 o-day was a holiday, so not having enough to do I gave way to
despondency and slumbered over the Academics. In the evening I
roused myself and took a ride, and have come back somewhat
refreshed.

Why should I laugh at you about Shillong? I myself feel like a
reed shaken by the wind and don’t know exactly what I want or what
I should do. On the whole I think I shall write to Cockerell thanking
him for giving me four more days, and saying I want a change of
station in November. Though Rangpur be a plain it is uphill work
living in it, and there is no prospect of improvement. The only changes
a*e that Livesay gets falter and R’s nose gets redder. . . . Poor Nil
Kemal has had another law suit decided against him; one that was
begun in his father’s time and was handed down to him as a melan¬
choly heirloom. ... He says it will go ar to ruin him. Poor man,
ls he really only unfortunate, a just man struggling with adversity,
° r is he too a swamp-bom serpent? . . .

169

India Called Them

S§L

s/'

ave written to Cockerell and asked him if I can have a change of
appointment between this and the end of the year. I think that some¬
thing will come of it. The dreariness of this place is really too dreadful
and there is no prospect of improvement. . . .

7/8/79.

I dined with the R’s last night. Livesay was there, and the evening
was pleasantly spent. We chaffed Livesay about marriage, and did
our best to be cheerful. We even talked of the Rhine and brought
in the Sieben Gebirge to enliven us. . . .

7 / 8 / 79 -

Soon as the evening shades prevail H. B. takes up the oft told tale.
I rose, I breakfasted, I held court, I dined. That is the chronicle. . . .

... It seems generally agreed that a lengthened stay in Rangpur
affects die brain, so perhaps I had better get out of it before I attain
to utter imbecility.

I have been reading the Tale of a Tub. Very clever but of forgotten
interest. Strange that Swift should now be remembered chiefly for
his love of a waiting-w'oman. It should be a good lesson to some of
our arrogant geniuses to see that a great writer, i.e., a writer great in
his day, is often immortalised by his folly, or at least by his heart,
rather than by his intellect. Witness Abelard and Heloise, Dante and
Beatrice, Petrarch and Laura, Swift and Stella, and perhaps others.

I have been reading Browning. He is a great man lost in mist.
Why has he written so many puzzles ? I do not think that one so hard
to understand can be the fuller minstrel Tennyson prays for. The
whole world seems to be still sitting in darkness waiting for illumina¬
tion. Will it come in our day or will the clouds continue to lower for
another century? We know not, but all the same v/e must plod on our
dim and perilous w'ay and bew r are of Will of the Wisps.

9/8/79.

The enclosed from Cockerell is not very satisfactory. I believe that
if we are in earnest we should write to Sir Steuart himself or the
Private Secretary Henry. I don’t, however, know that husband of a
fair w ife, and I am too cowardly to be very anxious for a transfer.
Like the lady in Tennyson’s poem (The Earl?) I hate Rangpur as
deep as hell but I love its coolness passing well. Every time a nice
cool breeze blows, as it does just now, I say to myself Das Gute
lieg 1 . so nahe, what a pity it would be if w r e went to Gya or some
other hot place and the children drooped. I’ll think no more and write

170

MINISr^

<SL

The Family Begins and Separates

If they offer me Calcutta or its neighbourhood I will;
ybn’t disturb them by entreaties. ...
friend Miss Dawson is quite mistaken about Mrs. Ward.
She was the daughter of Edward Palmer the E. I. Railway Agent, who
was a man who always had a big salary and was I fancy in good
society for the last 30 years. Mrs. W. is clever and pushing. Her not
being lady-like is natural, I fancy, and not the result of humble birth.
She is what the French call a maitresse femme and caught Ward
after he had flirted with many a Calcutta belle. . . .

I took a ride this morning by the bhil. The Lotuses in it were all
aglow and presented a spectacle which perhaps Bengal only can
furnish. They moved their green and red banners in the breeze, as
if they were part of a half-submerged army—say that of Cambyses
sinking in the Serbonian hog. I then went on to the Jail where I saw
the Doctor Babu or the Doctor Sahib. Our servants don’t know
exactly what to call him, but if ever a Doctor looked as if he belonged
to the genus Babu species Dacca and variety Christian, it is Ram
Chunder, the stout and mild, who wears coloured spectacles. . . .

My poor Mother apparently will not give up the blessed hope of
eternal damnation. See in Lecky an extraordinary passage from Peter
Lombard showing how the sight of the damned will add to the
pleasure of the saints.

I hope you have sent my watch down. The brass timepiece has
failed and I have now no means of telling the time. ... I hope that
you enjoyed the dance. If you brought Miss Dawson here perhaps
she would catch a collector. Livesay is I think Josh Sedley improved
by foreign travel and by fifty years of the world’s march. He said the
other night that middle life was the happiest time because by that time
you really came to know what is w r hat in the way of Cookery! I said
I know as little as ever, whereat he pitied me. I see Katherine Welsh
has been condemned. I wonder if novel reading, say for instance the
perusal of Miss Braddon’s Henry Dunbar, suggested to her her crime.

Rangpur, 10/8/79.

• • • I have just read a fine article on Wordsworth by Matthew
Arnold in Macmillan.

I went to-day to look at the Public Library. Our collections are
only about Rs. 25 and we spend Rs. 20 on establishment. I am going
to abolish the Librarian pro tern, and make my acting Translator sit
in the Library and do the work of Librarian. . . .

Upashin has just come in to say that the cow has had a bull calf!
Poor maligned creature, she has thought of the children after all. I

171

MIN IST/f

India Called Them

ink that the match of Miss S. and Mi*. H. would be ai
i bit of a snob, but I should say he was moral and good-natured,
refine him, and he will bring vigour in to the co-partnery. I
agree with George Eliot and do not see why vulgar men should not
have ladylike wives. The latter may suffer but posterity gains. I
wonder what sort of a man Nellie Akroyd has caught. Has she given
up her play-acting then? I almost think there should be a law against
people with children marrying again. It never answers apparently.
While the custom lasts people should certainly be allowed to marry
their sister-in-law, as it is the best chance that the children will be well
treated. If your father or my uncle (Erskine) or Mr. New (of Evesham)
or Mrs. Bayley of Shillong’s father had not married again much
sadness would have been saved.

Yes I think Shillong is better than Darjeeling, but an Assam judge¬
ship would not, I think, suit me; however I would take it if they
offered it to me. . . .

What a blessing that Mrs. R. is naturally so cheerful and that she is
somewhat obtuse. Her thoughts run upon a change in the Native
Members as a remedy for all things though nothing but a change in
her husband’s ways could give her real happiness.

Mrs. Goldie’s is a melancholy letter. It is her nature and poor
Jeannie’s death only gave her a peg to Jiang her other sorrows on
and was as it were a justification for her sadness to the world. . . .
Surely with enough money and three nice daughters she ought to
be moderately happy. Perhaps novel reading spoilt her as it has spoiled
so many men and women too.

Rangpur, 10/8/79.

I have got through a lot of letters to-day. ... I ventured to tell
Mrs. Goldie that she was more melancholy than there was occasion for.

I read a very interesting article on Lessing in the Quarterly though
I did fall asleep in the middle of it. . , ,

Rangpur, 13/8/79.

. . . About a transfer, I doubt if anything will be done till Eden
comes l ack. ... I should like a jury district. Assam is no field
unless they make me Chief Commissioner. As for making a reputation
v till the High Court, I could not be in a better place than Rangpur.
Their annual report is in the press and we shall see if they say anything.
Unfortunately my statement gave them much trouble.

I am meditating a very swell article called Bengal and the Bengalis,
but have not yet turned the first sentence to my liking. I sometimes
almost pant for what I imagine would be a wider sphere, and then

172

■ MIN tSlfty

The Family Begins and Separates

fall back and say, Too late, let me work the work befon

Zandjkot be restless. Even poor Livesay was quite pathetic to-night
about the dullness of Rangpur.

14/8/79.

. . . The west verandah will slip down by itself by the end of the
rains and should not, I think, be rebuilt. It makes the drawing room
what Sydney Smith said of Rogers’ breakfast room—a place of dark¬
ness and gnashing of teeth. . . .

I had to take up a case to-day which was fixed for to-morrow as
there was no other work. Greville says Lord Brougham complained
that he had no work as Chancellor and added that he did not stand
the prolixity of counsel but insisted on their speaking to the points
about which he was in doubt. Perhaps Piaru Babu and others think
I try too much to adjust the sights of their oratorical guns. N’importe,
I get time for miscellaneous work, and for stirring up my Nazir. . . .
I had to fill up an appointment lately and gave it to the man with the
best certificates. My only doubt was how such a Phoenix could accept
15 a month. Well, he came this morning and confessed that in 1877
Mr. Westmacott had imprisoned him for a year for breach of trust
and that he had not appealed! I told him I was very sorry but he must
resign, and so he is gone. There was no merit in his confession for a
disappointed candidate had peached to the head clerk. . . .

I took the Cabul out by the Burihat road this evening and past
many green fields and bambu clumps. Pretty but sad and unhomelike.
One feels about Bengal as if one were travelling in the moon and
seeing verdant fields, strange flowers, etc. We allow its beauty but
long for something home brewed.

17/8/79.

. . . ~ think that to get a transfer we must go up and see the L. G.
either duiing the pujas or at Christmas. ... I am not aware that
Assam is vacant or likely to be so. At most Ward would only give it
U P> I presume, for two years. Professionally the appointment would
not suit me. ... If I was not a Judge I should go to Assam and
start a paper and keep rampant officials and tearing Tea Planters in
check.

18/8/79.

Most of yesterday I spent in reading a Jar of Honey from Mount
Hybla and Etna. The first is by Leigh Hunt and is delightful. Some¬
how one reads whatever Hunt wrote just as one reads everything of
Lamb s and Malthew r Arnold’s. It is not that they are great or profound
Writers, but because they are charming.

173

MINlSr^

India Called Them

2i/ 4fiT

/continued rain has made all our houses to leak. Our Court^^
leaking and the Courts can hardly sit in them. The compound
is half full of water and everything is damp and mouldy. I dined with
Livesay last night and we talked literature. He is glad to have somebody
to talk to and so for that matter am I. . . .

I have given my decision in Nil Kemal Zohari’s case and have given
him and his co-heirs more than the officers who held the local enquiry
proposed to allow him. They w r ill get about Rs. 14000 which will be
a small set off against the lac they have to pay in another case. How¬
ever Rani Surramoy will, of course, appeal and goodness knows
when the case will end. It began in 1852 and the dispute which led
to it arose some five and twenty years before. And so time runs away.
The heirlooms which a Bengali father leaves to his sons are lawsuits.

I am anxious to know what appointments will be made under the
new rules about natives. I think it is a mistake to say they must all
be under 25. If you can get a ripe and experienced man for the same
money as a raw youth why not take the former ? The matter of his
pension can be arranged for.

I have been reading Greville —a delightful and useless book and
one that is a graveller of Kings. I tremble when I think that the Queen
must die and that the Prince of Wales must be our King. He would
not last long, however.

22/8/79.

I have been dutifully trying the reduction of fraction question you
sent me and the following is my solution.

My answer is

2X+ 3
3* — 4

The answer according to you is

2 *+ 3
x+ 1. .

I am reading Theophrastus Such. He is good but one cannot read
much of him at a time any more than one can take a bellyful of Liebig.

24/8/79.

I have been trying to make up my accounts but not very success¬
fully. ... It is a great compliment to you if people want us to judge
Assam for I am sure no one would wish me to be substituted for
Ward the musical, the contriver of theatricals, the player of cricket
and polo, etc. ... I am still clockless but have written for a railway
guard’s watch. When I am very rich I shall buy a keyless watch.

174

The Family Begins and Separates

- %Vv -Jg /1 have been reading to-day the life of David Hare. It is interest-
rand shows why he was liked by the Bengalees. Perhaps he is the
only Englishman who has been genuinely liked by natives, at least by
Bengalees. He retired from business in 1816 and instead of going
home settled down in Calcutta and lived among the babus till he died
in 1842. For thirty years he busied himself about their education
though he himself was not learned. I don’t believe in any paid official
ever winning the heart of the Bengalees. They have one, I believe,
but it beats slowly. I scout the notion that Hastings or Lawrence or
Dalhousie was ever beloved by the natives or that ever they were
personally attached to Lord William Bentinck. Watson was popular
perhaps with teachers, but did the body of the natives know him?

I have been reading Seneca too, as much as the smallness of the
print would allow. He is a noble sermoniser, and you know I want
to be a Stoic.

Coming in to dinner this evening I was affected by seeing Letty’s
high chair, and wondered when she would fill it again.

25/8/79.

I read half of Julius Caesar last night. ... I have been reading too
Theophrastus Such. The first remark that occurs to me is that the
author is sure of her public. No one not sure of being read would
"write in so antiquated a style and without insertion of any human
interest. . . . The book is clever, of course, but oh, so melancholy.
One would say it had been written in Rangpur and in the rains.

Morning, 26/8/79.

I feel bitter to-day because among other tilings the guard’s watch
I have just got from Hamilton has stopped and because etc., etc.

However, I shall go and bathe and breakfast and then to court
where I shall take it out of the Pleaders. We shall not live forever in
India. Even if we do not go home, we at least must die and so will
not have the Bengali Babu always sitting like a nightmare on our
souls. Meanwhile let us work while it is still day.

Evening, 26/8/79.

I have had a good dinner and a pint of claret and feel comfortable
accordingly. How like an old bullock or a tired horse one feels on
such occasions. Panem et somnum is almost all he seeks and the
wisdom of ages hived up in books touches him not. He is on a lower
level and leaves Shelley and Carlyle on the shelf. . . .

I had not such a hard day in court as I expected, though I did not

*75

mtSTffy.

India Called Them

> six. I sat and gossiped with the Nazir. I think that
tt>u, though of course if he had a case about half an ac
land he would lie like a Trooper. Query—does a Trooper lie,
and if so what about.

27/8/79. ;

I have just been entertaining the Collector. We had a round of beef
(salted here) and we discussed the bitterness of poets, the Bengalee
character, etc. Really Livesay has a lot of literature and in Rangpur
shines conspicuous. ... I paid a visit to Livesay’s tree to-night. It
is one of the things that is almost worth a voyage to India to see.
Canova said London Bridge was worth coming to England for, and
I think Livesay’s tree and that at Bogra worth coming to these places
for. I am afraid that Livesay’s tree is all the more beautiful in that
it is not useful like that at Bogra.

I am busy putting my office in order, and am issuing all sorts of
orders and making all kinds of changes. I feel that I ought to make
my comparative leisure of use and that this is the fructiferous time of
my stay in Rangpur. I feel oppressed by the loads of old papers in
my record-room and am taking steps to reduce their amount. I also
poke up my Nazir and my accountant and apply, as it were, mustard
plasters to their sleek ribs. I should like them to say in future years
Beeverij Sahib made this order. B. S. destroyed these papers. B. S. was
a raging rhinoceros of the record room, a malleus munimentorum.

I shall try your sum, but not to-night; I am too full of beer and
beef. Do I shock you ever with my letters ? Pleasant for you to think
that if I do W. H. and Letty will do so likewise, for they also are his
off-spring, to quote St. Paul. The evil men do lives after them and
when W. H. and Letty misbehave you will have to console yourself
as my mother used to do by saying—it is the Beveridge spirit which
they have inherited. H. B. his mark, may it long remain in his
descendants though tempered by the sweet influence of the mother’s
side of the house. I am delighted to hear of Letty’s joyousness and
brightness. Poor Mrs. Ridsdale among her dogs and Mrs. Williamson
among her knick-knacks must envy you. They are, however, free
from many cares.

I am glad that you have seen Roma Bai again and that you have
been able to help her. Poor woman, I hope she will find someone who
will treat her better than Lord Oswald did Corinne. She is a native,
but how much more interesting after all than Mrs. Ringwood,
Ridsdale, Elder, Nicolas, Biggs, Roben, etc., etc. I have rhapsodised
enough and will go to bed. . . .

I have been at work since five this morning. ... I remember

176

MIN IST/f

The Family Begins and Separates

preacher say that there were men of whom it might
nathty be predicted that they would do right as that the sun would
pursue his path in the firmament. And I thought how fine it must
be to know such men. Do they indeed exist, or is it not the case that
the best of us are in Tennyson’s words made up of “great bursts of
heart and slips in sensual mire.”

The utmost, I think, that one can feel certain about is that some
men never will be happy if they do what is wrong. We could fancy
Gladstone or Dr. Johnson or Thackeray or the old Pope in the Tung
and the Book or Dean Stanley doing wrong, but we know that it is
very unlikely and that at all events they must eventually come back
to virtue and that they never will be happy away from the fold. To
them Virtue or Nobleness may say in the words of Browning:

§L

Mine thou wast, mine art and mine shalt be,
Faithful or faithless, sealing up the sum
Or lavish of my treasure, thou must come
Back to the heart’s place here I keep for thee.

All this refers to Theophrastus and your remarks thereon.

31/8/79.

I am afraid my modier is sinking somewhat. There is a beautiful
passage in Dryden about a peaceful death in old age, comparing it to
the hands of a clock standing still when it has run down. The simile,
however, is not exact, for a clock goes on as strongly as ever till it
stops. At least, I believe so. After all, perhaps he is right. He is referring
to the old clocks with pendulums, and they I believe gradually come
to a stop.

I have been thinking of the time when you should come down.

There followed in this same letter nine pages of discussion
of difficulties and alternative plans for Annette’s journey,
including the typical happy thought that she might continue on
the river steamer all the way down to Calcutta so as to get the
children photographed. The letter, before it ended, included a
promise to “try your sums hereafter,” an observation that a
logical and consistent clergyman must be a Quietist or a Torque-
mada or perhaps both, and enclosure of die Hindu Patriot “with
a wicked motive, namely to show that the High Court decisions
are reversed sometimes.”

The stream of letters from Rangpur continued with comment
on people, scenery and books. One of diem marked a fresh

177

India Called Them

Annette’s growing deafness—acceptance of an

6/9/79.

I have made a suitable reply to Chunder, though effusive letters
(except from my wife, and she only gives me one once a year or so)
make me feel for defensive weapons, and cause me to set my face like
flint.

Yesterday evening Mrs. R. gave me a drive. I wish it had been the
Shillong Mrs. R. for our Rangpur one is not amusing, poor soul.
She is a good woman, though, and steps bravely through life. I
believe she will live and die without ever knowing that she has had
a hard and not happy life. Virgil talks about those who would be
fortunate if they knew their blessings. There are some people who
would be unfortunate if they knew their ills.

I have been reading Kingsley’s life, a fine brave man if ever there
was one, but not intellectually strong enough for the 19th century.
One thinks of him as a gallant mounted on a bad horse, or a brave
foot soldier armed with obsolete weapons. I do not think we can ever
have a really strong man unless he give up the absurdity of praising
the past at the expense of the present. Any man who writes novels or
history to show that the old times were better than the present is out
of the swim, and wrong utterly.

I see two buffaloes grazing in our compound; don’t you think we
should draw the line at buffaloes ?

I have a long case to try to-morrow, and I rather dread this for I
get frightfully weak at limes and feel that I have to hold on by my
teeth, so to speak. . . . My cases pursue me to bed and so I do not
get fully restored by morning. Thank goodness the work is light.
I am so glad we did not leave Rangpur a year ago. This slack time,
and the experience I have gained, have enabled me to make many
reforms. . . .

I have been reading Kingsley’s life again. Some of it is very fine,
and indeed it is almost too spirit-stirring at times, and I am glad to
take refuge in sober law''. He w'as a gallant spirit and on the whole
he had a happy life.

The inscription which he, I believe, chose for his tombstone, had
reference to his wdfe (Argenon Lavington of Yeast) and was Amavimus,
arnamus, amabimus.

8/9/79.

My record keeper told me this morning that on Saturday, while
they v ere pursuing their work of arranging the records, a large cobra
came out of one of the bundles.

178

The Family Begins and Separates

been to see the doctor, who looks very well; he is co
$ker to-night. He has brought your trumpet; it is ugly but very
powerful. The tube is telescopic and when drawn out the instrument
is like a small speaking trumpet. I think it will often be useful to you
in the dark or when listening to servants.

12/9/79.

We have had still more rain. Yesterday the sweeper and Jogaru
killed a very large cobra at the door of the billiard room. . . .

I do not think you should hope that we have seen the last of
Rangpur. It is not unlikely that we may be here for many a day yet.

20/9/79.

... I have made up my mind to economise in horse flesh and so
I* have sent the Cabul down to Calcutta to be sold. I felt sorry when
he turned his shapely form to go out of the compound, and I gave him
a farewell pat, but now he has gone and I feel relieved. I never could
have ridden him in company with you and he costs us 30 or 40 a
month. . . .

I have just heard that Maclean is going into the High Court and
so have written to Sir Steuart and Mr. Cockerell asking for the 24
Parganas; is not that pleading? . . .

I quite approve of your going to the fancy ball as Queen Elizabeth,
which Henry should I appear as—Henry IV, my idol, Henry Beau-
clerc, whom I fain would be, Henry VII whose rigorous economy
I imitate, Henry VIII the Defender of the Faith, or Henry of Portugal
the navigator? I suppose you would not like to go as Susanna. Did
you ever read the postscript to Bums’ song to Anna. I dare not give
the first four lines to you, for happily, and not, as the French has it,
unhappily, it is not a sin for me to come and see you. I shall give you
the last four, however:

She is the sunshine o’ my e’e
To live but her I canna,

Had I on earth but wishes three,
The first should be Susanna.

Love and kisses from your eccentric, moody and sometimes bitter
but always affectionate husband.

Rangpur, 14/9/79-

o , . We had a most successful meeting at the public library
yesterday. We abolished the newspapers rmd resolved to spend Rs.
500 at once in the purchase of new books. The funds came partly

179

India Called Them

HW ifie Temple Fund and pardy from savings. ... I ha'
cqM^nded to the High Court that one of my Munsiffs shoul
^pensioned off or reduced to Rs. 200 a month. He is P. K. R’s Brother,
whom I have found incorrigibly stupid and idle. I do not expect that
the High Court will take my word for this, so I am probably in for
a long report. . . .

The girls’ School is doing well, I hear, but the bills have not come
back and I shall have to advance the pay this month. We really must
get a better cart for the girls.

1 5/9/79-

Kinchinjunga was beautiful this morning, and as I walked up to
the school to get a better view of him (it is the best view in the station)
the north breeze blew crisply in my face. Rangpur may perhaps boast
of two sights: The biggest mountain in the world and the biggest
river in die Eastern Hemisphere. I suppose it is folly, but at times I
wish I had not written to Cockerell. However, it is veiy likely that
we shall not get a transfer. . . .

Your mention of Swift led me to look at Foster. He scouts the
w r aiting-maid story but Foster was an ass, though like that quadruped,
he was laborious. I have resolved to send the book to you. Please
study page 104 containing Swift’s Resolutions. . . .

Thursday night, 16/9/79.

... I finished my Sessions to-day. The last case was a robbery
committed on an unfortunate Demerara cooly. He had been out there
for fifteen years and returned with a little money, including ten
sovereigns, to enter on the Rangpur ryot’s Paradise of having two
wives. In this district a man sets up a second wife just as a prosperous
man at home sets up a carriage or a yacht.

The sessions has been a bad one for convictions, for nearly every
case has fallen through more or less.

The doctor is busy, for diis is feverish weather. . . .

18/9/79.

. . . I have had a holiday to-day and have spent part of it in reading
Plutarch’s Marcus Cato (a delightful biography) and Seneca’s De
Constantia Sapientis, To-morrow is a holiday also. ... I have with¬
drawn my application for transfer, i.e., I have said if there be a vacancy
in or near Calcutta I would apply, but that I did not like the suspense.
I am sorry to hear that you too sleep badly.

Rangpur, 22/9/79.

I miss you dreadfully but you are better out of this sultry heat.
It was almost impossible to sleep last night.

180

§L

The Family Begins and Separates

Strain of being apart, with exhausting work and hea
with recurring anxieties as to the children’s health for
Annette, with criss-cross argument as to dates and ways of
travelling one way or another, brought sometimes a fradge of
temper. In the middle of September Henry suddenly broke the
loving interchange between Rangpur and Shillong by a letter
setting out three causes of vexation to him, which caused Annette,
who took Henry always widi absorbing seriousness, to sit up
half the night answering him and to catch a cold that developed
into fever. The three causes of vexation were that Annette had
agreed to stay at Shillong as Henry desired but had been led to
do so by the advice of someone else; diat she had suggested that
Henry might enjoy Shillong; diat she had had an imbroglio with
die servants.

The sympathies of posterity will probably be with Annette
on this occasion, as they will be with Henry on die earring-
tobacco controversy. Henry made amends for his letter of
vexations in his usual manner; that is to say, first by wridrig
another letter on die same day full of love and caresses, making
no reference at all to any earlier letter; second, by admitting
later diat he was wrongly vexed and had been unjust; third, by
maintaining that neverdieless he was glad diat he had written,
and adding a characteristic truth of self-depreciation.

I am not sorry I wrote. It was ever so much better to tell you my
irritation than to nurse it and keep it warm. I was just thinking to-day
how much I owe to you in many ways. How much of any improve¬
ment that may have been made in myself I owe to you. . . .

Blake is one of die few poets whom Henry and Annette
hardly ever mentioned. But they acted faithfully on his precept
of saying to one another as friends exactly what diey thought
and felt at every moment of dieir lives.

I was angry with my friend
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry' with my foe,

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

Through all this exchange of letters between Rangpur and
Shillong run the recurrent themes of unhappiness in separation
and planning how to come together again.

181

India Called Them

Annette this took always the form of persuading
her in the hills. He was due for a month’s holiday from
the middle of October. She baited her hook for him with the
children, and seized on any illness of his as an argument.

Shillong, Thursday, 9/10/79.

Your letter of to-day makes me only the more eager to be with
you, and if possible here . Surely I cannot love you as I do and not
comfort you and at least I can nurse you. I am sure you have many a
worry and many a weary year to look back at—but you must not look
back —you must luxuriate in to-day and our love and our children's
charms and the good helpful work you do. I don’t like to look back
when I think of you for I cannot think without pain of you to whom
love is cheerfulness and indeed without which you suffer more than
most men, I think— alone and hard worked and torturing yourself as
I know how you can torture yourself.

Dr. O’Brien begged me to get you here or to Darjeeling if possible
for he said you could not but suffer after the terrible strain you had
here. If you come you shall do nothing you dislike— you shall lie
in the verandah and Letty shall improve your mind and read to you,
while you look—you must—with a little pride on your son—rolling
and kicking on the ground.

This was followed, later on that same day, by another letter
with plans for coming up (“If you took the Raja’s steamer—and
paid for the coal—you could be here by the 29th”) and with a
rejection of Henry’s argument that he must shorten his holiday
and stay at Rangpur to supervise some examinations.

I am somewhat shy of putting forward those exams, as a reason
why you must shorten your holiday, for the idea of your month being
cut short 5 days for them seems to strike most people here as absurd.
Don't think I say “absurd.” Do let Mr. Livesay and the Bengali
examiners do it. . . .

I will be very selfish and tell you that I shall feel it hard if on account
of work which it is not an imperative duty to do you leave us alone
anooier month. ... If no duty interferes, cannot you yield a little
to give me pleasure ?

Please do not be angry with me. I am very much disappointed, and
you must know it is very painful to me to be in the cheerful society
of the place and to think of you alone.

Alternatively, Annette put up pleas to be allowed to make

182

Position

Sirdar

Darwan

Mate

Khitmutgar

Cook

Masalchi

Bhesti

Mehta

Syce

.Grasscutter

Mali

Dirzi

Dhobi

Ayah

HENRY AND ANNETTE’S INDIAN ESTABLISHMENTS

Rangpur
(ist half of 1878)

Name

Wage*

Bisheshwar

IO/-

Gogram

8/-

Ramyad

7/~

Dost Mahomed

8/-

7/-

Shyam

12 /-

Baker

61 -

Umin

61 -

Bahadur

61 -

Jumin

61 -

5 1-

Date of entry
of service

Feb. 69
Nov. 73
Oct. 69
Aug. 80
Nov. 79
March 80
Sept. 80
Nov. 79

June 81
Nov. 79

Hurro

7/-

Jugurroo

61 -

Various

Chatur

sl-

Nov.

Thula

61-

Feb.

Olui

61 -

Nov.

Aug.

Thosh Mamudhy

10/-

Nov.

No. 2

8/-

Bhagaroo

12/-

May

Shaumdur

7 /-

Jan.

Dec.

Nov.

Bankipur
(ist half of 1882)

Position

Name

Wage 1

Sirdar (major-domo)

Bisheshwar

ioj-

Darwan (door-keeper)

Gogram

9l-

Mate

Ramyad

9/-

Khansamah (butler)

All Jan

12 /-

Khitmutgar (table-servant)

Putty

71 -

2nd Khitmutgar

Ismail

71 -

3rd Chokra (boy)

Jansi

*1-

Cook

Phojdar Ram

i*l-

Masalchi (kitchen hand)

sl-

Bhesti (water-carrier)

Matori

sl -

Mehta (sweeper)

Sankar

61-

Fowlman

BooJaki

5 1-

Cowman

Raja

41 -

Coachman

Kedar Bux

14I-

Syce (Groom)

Jubsee

61 -

Raghoo

61-

Pandey

61 -

Grasscutter

Manadeo

41-

Bija

41-

„ Judicial’s

Sirdar Mali (Flower) (Head

4 1-

Gardener)

3/-

sl-

3 unclermen

each

Chokra

*l~

Vegetable garden sirdar

3 h

4/-

2 under men

eacli

Mate Mali (assistant gardener)

4/-

*l~

Old woman

Garden bhesti

4 1~

Tailor

Tunnykhan

10 /-

Chokidar (watchman)

4/-

Mistree (carpenter)

Punnoo

10 /-

Dhobi (washerman)

21/-

Ayah

Bogmonia

10 /-

Ayah

Mounia

6/-

Jamuni

7/-

Bearer’s son-in-law

3/“

155/-

* The figures re; resent rupees

245/-

Faridpur
(2nd half of 1885)

Position or Name

Wage'

Bisheshwar

IO/-

Ramyad

Khansamah Jani

91-

Khitmutgar

71-

Chokra

*1-

Cook

10 /-

Masalchi

61 -

Bhesti

61 -

Sweeper

7/-

Syce

71-

Head Mali

7/-

ist under Mali

61 -

2nd under Mali

61 -

3rd under Mali

61 -

Dhobi 10 h

Bogmonia *%-

Punkah Wallah sh

Cokemaker 8/-

18 129 /--

MIN/Sr^

The Family Begins and Separates

rn to Rangpur. But in the end she had to stay lo
wished. In August she was planning return by the e
•ptember.

After dinner, Friday, 22/8/79.

... I hope you were not vexed by my to-day’s liberation of my
soul. I have studied the almanac to-day to find that it is still five
weeks till Sept. 29th, the last tonga in Sep. and the first I suppose we
may take even if all goes well. ...

Indeed I think it quite wrong that I should be so long away from
my post. When I come I will bring in all the outsiders I can to dine
and sleep and then will also have a native gathering—so long promised
and deferred.

When September came there was still hope of mid-October:

6/9/79-

My inexorable almanac tells me that I have still seven weeks of this
solitude to get through. I do not like it at all.

When October came the doctor forbade any move as early as
October 20th for fear of fever on the road. It was, in the end,
nine weeks, not seven, from September 6th before Annette was
home again. Well might she write as she did on October 6th
and 7th:

I have ceased to believe that I shall ever see you again.

My dear Love: When you brought your family to Shillong did
you ever suppose you were putting them into the trap it is ? . . .

Henry, for his part, while sometimes he played with the
thought of returning to Shillong, was more concerned to find
reasons for not doing so and to devise means of bringing Annette
and the children safely back to Rangpur. He wrote pages and
pages of alternative suggestions as to ways and date of travel,
returning always to the same point, that he wanted Annette as
soon as possible and that she must not come too soon for safety
from accidents on the road and from fever. His experience had
led him to distrust tongas, which on a hill road might spiil the
family over the bank, and he gravely suggested a bullock-cart.
Annette, dutifully investigating this suggestion, emphasized its
slowness: “The notion of at least twelve hours daily for three
days in a bullock-gharry is alarming.” She explored the possibility

183

India Called Them

ihoolie” as an alternative to a tonga. She laid the

*_under willing tribute to help her.

Henry, after four years only of this marriage, had not yet
realized all that there was to Annette. She undertook to get the
family down the hill in one way or anodier and what she
undertook she was certain to accomplish. She wanted Henry at
Shillong, not because she could not manage the journey down
without him, but because she thought it would be good for him
and because she was never happy alone.

But he was tired and dreading the long journey. Even when
for a moment he got so far as saying that he would come if
Annette really thought he should, he gave reasons against it.

Rangpur, 15/10/79.

Of course neither the journey to Shillong nor the stay there for
three or four days will do me any good and I will be one more person
to be got down the hill. Still I will try to come if you really think I
should.

The gaieties of Shillong I can hardly hope to share in and I am too
tired physically and mentally to care for going much into society. I
am quite contented that I have got an efficient representative in
yourself, and I am sure that I make a much more favourable impression
on people by my absence than my presence—that is when I have my
better half to appear for me. . . .

Even in India the cold weather comes at last and families are
re-united. By the second week of October Henry’s letters began
to take another note.

Rangpur, Sunday, 12/10/79.

I think the cold weather must be really coming. I feel so brisk and
even rollicking. I cannot dance for I have a boil on my left leg. My
right arm is still Rustumized 1 and I have a touch of earache but ior
all that I am jolly as if I had drunk Wine of Cypms. In the first place
I am relieved of suspense, I have made up my mind about Shillong.
I am not to go there but am to meet you at Dhubri or Gauhati. . . .
You must go to the Ball and bring me a stock of gossip sufficient to
last all the winter. Of course it never has occurred to you even for a
moment to think that by being alone for four months or so you have
had some respite from the cares of maternity and that W iliiam Henry s

* I'-.y turn as one of the horses towards whom Henry, in his own words, never liked
to pnetermit the duty of giving exercise.

184

misr/t

The Family Begins and Separates

>r will be all die better for starring on Iris road a mont

§L

vtwgSMter than he otherwise might have done. It is only your wicked
husband that thinks of these things and takes a perverse pleasure in
mentioning them to his Susannah.

Mis. Ringwood s son and heir has come after five daughters.
Ringwood called on me to-day, and would you believe it, he had
never heard of the Cabul Massacre! Can the force of seclusion further
go. It is literally true. He took up Punch and seeing a picture of the
British Lion and the Afghan wolves asked what it referred to. ... I

invited him to Badminton this evening but he declined on evangelical
principles.

fell Letty that Papa is going to make her such a magnificent swing.
A sal post from the west verandah is to be stretched between the
almond trees and provided widi hooks. Everybody says I have
improved the garden so much, but it is your approval that I want
most. Perhaps though you may not praise everything you will adopt
the maxim of Hindu law and say Factum valet quod non fieri
debuit.

Another thing that is cheering me is that the big Jalpaiguri case is
to be finished this week. ... It is such a relief to think that I shall
not have to retain in my mind all the damnable lies that have been
told up to the ist December.

I have quite made up my mind that I am not to get die twenty-four
Parganas. Nor do I want them. Three years more and we will go
home for good and make sand houses with the children on the sea¬
shore. . . .

So you are younger for Letty, are you? I have no doubt of it.
ou aie younger too for your husband, for his wickedness is ever
new. I am sure I am younger for you, my dear, and have no wish
t lat the world should come to an end. I only wish that there was
more of it and yet H. and Annette must in good time give place and
let Letty and W. H. come forward to die footlights and play their
parts. Bless them, theyil have their troubles and trials but the world
will be older and wiser and both stage and audience will be improved.

The big Jalpaiguri case which Henry mentioned in, this letter
proved to be one of the most important in his career. It concerned
a disputed succession to a very large estate. It involved questions
of Hindu law, as to the conditions on which a valid adoption of
an heir could be made, and quest' :is of fact, giving unlimited
scope to the fancy of witnesses. The estate itself w r as so large that
the case was practically certain to be carried up not only to the

185

India Called Them

TIigh Court in Calcutta, but beyond that to the Privy CoUncR
m London.

The counsel on one side, Durga Mohan Das, had been one
of the principal supporters of Annette’s school; he was an eminent
lawyer and a man of great public spirit, but Henry found him
in court “decidedly a heavy gentleman, prone to waste the court’s
time and his client’s money by asking useless questions”; Henry
refused to burden his notes with the answers and shamelessly
wrote one of his letters to Annette while sitting in Cutcherry.
Characteristically, Henry gave up holidays in order to go on
with the case continuously and save money to the parties.
Characteristically, having made up his mind that much of the
evidence had been invented to suit the defendant’s case, he said
so before calling on the plaintiff to answer, and so shortened the
case still further. Yet in spite of this it took more than a month
from start to finish in Rangpur. Thereafter it was carried to the
High Court, who reversed Henry’s decision, and thence to the
Privy Council who, nearly four years later, reversed the High
Court decision and restored that made by Henry.

Rangpur, 11/10/79.

I have arranged to hear the big Jalpaiguri case on Monday and to
go on with it into the holidays. This will save the parties* time and
money (D. M. D. gets Rs. 200 a day) and will give the pujas for the
consideration of my judgment.

Thursday night, 16/10/79.

D. M. D. has had another day’s innings and he has pounded me
with authorities. He is ponderous, but he is conscientious and
thorough and I have learnt much from him. We spar occasionally,
and I am sure he thinks me too quick. Magnum confecimus aequor
and possibly he may finish to-morrow. The case is really deeply
interesting, and I am glad that I will have the holidays to think about
it. I was fearful if I postponed it that I might be transferred and that
the Cause Celebre might thus fall to my successor. It will go up even
into the Queen’s Chambers, for one party or other is sure to carry
it to the Privy Council. The estate is an impartible Raj, i.e., the right
of primogeniture prevails in it and there are many questions about
adoption involved. Shall I be gifted to decide it rightly? . . .

Will you be ablt to bring any orchids or ferns from Shillong; my
last hobby, you know, is gardening. ... I am quite ashamed of my

186

The Family Begins and Separates

<SL

ing but my fingers refuse to do anything better,
handwriting puts me to shame altogether. I am an old
bullock, you know, and cannot improve. D. M. D.’s eloquence kept
me till 5 and then a criminal appeal kept me till 6.30 so that I am
pumped out. . . .

I have just returned from the Jail, a spurt of energy having induced
me to go there and write a long minute about Hospital accommodation,
etc.

I cannot give up my faith in Mrs. Sherer. Many years ago I used
to flirt with her, i.e., I was her devoted slave (unknown to her) for
two or three days, played chess with her, and in my coxcombry
allowed her to beat me. She is charming but Joe is a tinkling cymbal.
I haven’t taken in all your nice letter yet. I’ll read it again when my
bearer is washing my feet and fomenting that wretched boil of mine.
It is the biggest I have had.

Saturday 2.30 a.m., 18/10/79.

I arise from dreams of D. M. D. and now sit down to write to thee.

The man of three letters above noted still continues his bombard¬
ment. Daily he casteth up a -wall of books in front of me and every
now and then he hurls one at me and begs (preces erant sed quibus
contradici non potuit) me to keep it for his sake. That is, I am to take
it to my home and my bosom and beguile my after-dinner moments
with its artless prattle. O dura ilia causidicorum. However, we choked
off D. M. D. a little. He wanted to argue that an only son could be
adopted and this Court had fortunately read two rulings of the High
Court which say he cannot and so it put them on its head as a Cadi
does with the Koran and said it was concluded by authority. Grand
phrase that, and one wdiich I recommend you to use to Letty. Well
D. M. D. finishes to-day I believe. No doubt wdien a man gets 200 a
day and can spin a thing out by reading interminable extracts he is
loath to stop. His words sound silvery in his ears and though his voice
may get ropy he thinks of the rupi and goes on. Let us have another
glass, he says to himself, as Cotton Mather used to say to his congre¬
gation. There is a jolly amount of lying in the case and I believe there
are two small boys in it who owe their birth to Mr. Justice Markby.
I believe that gentleman was most respectable and I should not like
to hurt the feelings of Mrs. Markby but yet I believe him to be the
father of two Kuch boys named Babua and Jogishwar. In other words,
because Mr. Markby decided that an only son could not be adopted
and because the boy in the case before me w r as an only son, his friends
straight away supplied him with two brothers and now we have the

187

India Called Them

<SL

gentlemen’s horoscopes and a variety of interesting parti
them; their mother, too, i.e., the adopted boy’s mother, coming
forward and describing their birth, etc.; the fact being that they never
existed. Of course, please don’t mention this for adhuc sub judice lis
est and the respectable D. M. D. is gravely going to stand sponsor for
the boys to-day and perhaps to shed a tear over their untimely deaths.
I have got a suspicion though that he is rather shy about the boys and
would gladly drop them if he could. No doubt he suspects that the
Court is sceptical.

Really I sometimes wonder how I believe anybody, seeing that so
many cart loads of lies have been shot into me for the last twenty

years.

Perhaps, however, stinking lies, like stinking manure, eventuate in
the white flowers of truth. i

Now I think I shall go to bed again.

Sunday, 19/10/79.

D. M. D. still continues his silver speech (Rs. 200 and a day and
6 hours makes about a rupee for every two minutes). Another week
of him would drive me into the arms of Keshub Babu. He says he will
finish in an hour or two to-morrow, but I doubt it. He has not treated
us to any eloquence yet, has not held up the spectacle of the poor
fatherless not to say brotherless boy called upon at the age of 15 to
contend for his right against a cruel grand-uncle who is not at all
interesting. The boy himself being as white as milk or at least as
cream and as pretty a youth as ever told a lie or was devoured by
parasites. D. M. D. I fear has no eloquence and no wit. He is vigorous
and honest and laborious. Nay, he is also learned, but arrowy intellect
has not been vouchsafed to him. I think that in another life he must
have been an elephant.

Tuesday, 21/10/79.

The big case is at an end and nothing remains except for me to
write and deliver my judgment. At the conclusion of D. M. D.’s
address yesterday I said I had a few words to say before the Pff.
replied. I then said there were some points on which I had great
doubts and others on which I had no doubts at all. The points I had
doubts about were the law points and those I had no doubts about
were the questions of fact. I then said that I had no doubt that
Rajishwar was an only son and that I believed Mr. Justice Markby
to he the real father of his two brothers. This was received in solemn
silence. I then said that I utterly disbelieved die story of the concealed
adoption by the Rajah, i.e., the adoption four years before he pro¬
claimed it.

188

The Family Begins and Separates

sequence of these remarks the Plaintiff’s reply was
r he had only to answer D. M. D/s speech about the law-j!
so the whole thing was over by 3 o’clock, instead of lasting till
to-day as was expected.

I now feel as a clock may feel which has been too tightly wound up.
I would like to run down again and do no more serious work except
writing the judgment till 17 November.

I dined with the Doctor last night. D. M. D. got upwards of Rs.
6000 for the Jalpaiguri case. He has taken a house at Darjeeling for the
holidays and went off there yesterday.

Even if Govt, does sanction my being at rest on the tenth, I hope
you will be here then as the Station will be full and we all weary for
you. Nobody likes me as a bachelor. Morose old stick, always in
cutcherry. . . .

. . . To-morrow we all go to Gobind Babu’s and Jundi Babu’s to
the puja celebrations.

4 p.m., 21/10/79.

If you saw what an undertaking the putting up of the cross timber
for the swing is! It is a Brobdignagian swing fit for the children of the
Titans or for the infant Zeus on Mount Ida.

I am quite excited to think we shall meet so soon. I shall be at
Gauhati by the 29th or 30th and you will be there a day or two after¬
wards. Perhaps we will stay there for a day or two and admire
Gauhati.

I have been reading the Crofton Boys. What a length Miss Martineau
must have travelled after that.

I began my judgment in the Jalpaiguri case to-day but did not do
much more than find the proper spelling of the PfFs name—Pharindra
(lord of serpents). Phar is the hood of the cobra and Pliari is a serpent.

« « « o *

22/10/79.

I have been pounding away all day at my judgment and have
finished the first issue (six and twenty pages). The second will be
begun to-morrow—that wretched Durga Puja will interfere with my
"working at night. . . .

23/10/79.

We spent a stupid night'yesterday but I suppose we did our duty.
I was not in bed till one and then I awoke at 3 with earache and wrote
at my judgment for an hour. Then I went to bed again and did not
get up till near 10. . . .

189

India Called Them
ha^e written about 80 pages of a judgment and upward of

Dhubri, 25/10/79.

My Darling wife,

I caught your letter in its flight yesterday for though you said
you would WTite to Dhubri the old familiar Rangpur came to your
pen. . . .

I came from Rangpur with Mr. Kennedy and his fiancee. Just as he
arrived here he got a telegram, I believe, that he had just been appointed
an Extra Assistant Commissioner. He is an expensive young man and
I doubt if his somewhat stupid Ethel will long enchain him. I am to
dine with Dr. Slane to-night.

I have been reading Ranke’s Popes. What a fine fellow Sixtus 5th
was. It was he, as you no doubt know, who put up the obelisk before
St. Peter’s. . . .

Before leaving Rangpur I finished my judgment, eighty pages about,
and nearly 11 or 13,000 words. It wants correction though. I am not
eager to go to Calcutta except to have the children photographed.
And in any circumstances I want you to come here first. We will enjoy
ourselves at Rangpur. To me it will be all abundant happiness to have
you beside me again and to talk to you. I am quite wearied of this
loneliness, and pity the Doctor from the bottom of my soul.

I would like you to stay here for a day on your way home. The
big river is so invigorating, so enlarging a sight, and the Dak Bungalow
has about the nicest position in Dhubri. . . . Abir missed the steamer
yesterday but escaped a reproof by his alacrity in travelling all last
night with two coolies and arriving here at 10 a.m. I think the air
of this place must do me good though I feel very weak. That case
and judgment have taken it out of me.

Your loving husband who hopes soon
to hold you in his arms.

While Henry wrestled with the Jalpaiguri case all through
October, Annette’s time at Shillong became ever more completely
filled by the children and minor distractions. Henry sent her a box
of fineries from Calcutta and she gloated over them:

13/10/79.

I don’t think I am a vain woman—what have I to be vain of—but
I should be vain if you were here to praise me in my pretty clothes.
Everything in my box has passed a committee of Mrs. Boyd, Miss
Daw son and Miss Elder as being more charming than the last.

190

The Family Begins and Separates

two days later Henry proposed to follow up the fi:
re volumes of Comte, Annette asked him to keep Cd
tangpur; she had no time for reading.

There were innumerable social activities, working up to the
fancy dress ball about which Henry had given advice; in the end
Annette went not as Queen Elizabeth but as the Old Woman
who lived in a Shoe, in a costume of her own devising. She made
an impression and was ingenuously pleased with herself.

Shillong. 23/10/79

I came home from the Fancy Ball at three this morning so you may
be sure that I was well amused. . . . When I went I was so tired
from packing and taking Joy out that I thought I should not stay.
To my surprise I was much congratulated on my dress, the work of
my own hands, and I believe my powder and rouge were not un¬
becoming. I think of rouging regularly for I see odiers so much
improved that I think I too should be by it.

True to her character of Recording Angel she gave Henry a
list of all the leading ladies and their costumes.

There was an exciting reminder of India outside ballrooms
when the 44th Regiment which had left Shillong unexpectedly
returned there. It came back to be used in dealing widi trouble
in the Naga Hills when a British official and his escort were
ambushed and killed.

There was a limitless ocean of station gossip and a recurrent
falling out of station ladies with one another. Mrs. X had been
to call on Mrs. W and being told that the latter was at tiffin and
so not able to see her, declared that she would never call there
again, or on any one else in Shillong. Young Mrs. S was dying
to go to the Fancy Dress Ball but for some reason known only
to herself refused Mrs. R’s invitation to take her, and thereafter
by various emissaries sent hints to Annette to get her there.
Mrs. Z had had a “mishap” and Mrs. Y was “put out” with
Annette because Annette, knowing of this, had not thought fit
to publish it to and through Mrs. Y. “Have I not given you a
petty picture of ladies’ life in Shillong?” asked Annette of Henry,
to whom all this was duly related.

Two years before, at Darjeeling, Annette had succeeded in
getting Henry up to the hills for ten days. At Shillong she failed,

191 G*

India Called Them

JSL

vacung

as to fail three years later at Mussoorie. Henry dug
{to his work and found one reason after another for evading
Shillong. Some of these reasons, like desire to do prompt justice
in the Jalpaiguri case, were good. Others, like the assumed
obligation of supervising examinations in his holidays, were less
good; the Lieutenant-Governor, when appealed to, confirmed
the view taken by Annette that this work could be left to
the Collector of the station and need not shorten the judge’s
holiday.

But by that time the die had been cast against Henry’s coming
to Shillong, and Annette’s plans for getting down the hill from
it were complete. On the last day of October, after playing a
final match at badminton at 8 a.m., she, with the children, was
driven by a friend down the worst part of the road and safely
reached the river, Gauhati, and Henry, on the following day;
this remained to them always a memorable reunion. Four more
days saw them home together, by a new route from Dhubri, and
after a journey in which first the river steamer and then the ferry
steamer had stuck on a bank.

Just before leaving Shillong, Annette had received a telegram
for Henry offering the chance of a new station.

Shillong, Wednesday, 29/10/79.

My Dearest Love,

As I dined to-night with the Boyds came a messenger with the
enclosed telegram. I am longing to know what you will say because you
must not yield to the sense of quiet at home in Rangpur without
t hin king of other things—such as your work, your professional
education and advancement and the desirability of a change of district
for these objects. If you go I must stay a short time behind and pack
up and sell off. I am going to ask Mr. Ridsdale how long he thinks the
Govt, can wait for an answer, for, of course, I should like to talk it
over with you before you decide pro or con. I am to play my third
match to-morrow at 8 a.m., so there will not be much delay in sending
the telegram to you if I wait to see Mr. Ridsdale first. I am letting off
rny wish to chat with you in this preliminary gossip on the subject.
I am inclined to think we should go—but then you know I cannot
judge. It might be a better step Higher than lrom Rangpur.

Goodnight, my dear Henry.

192

misTfy

■§L

The Family Begins and Separates

Thursday, 30/ior

e last coolies have gone. I have played another badminton match
and won again.

I have been hearing a great deal about Patna and think we should
not refuse it. Of course there are things to regret on leaving Rangpur
—shame to us would it be if it were not so—but there are many
more reasons for going than for staying. May I tell you what seem
to me some of these reasons.

Patna is regarded as promotion.

It is a jury district.

It has many interests from its size, its college and its position
which we have not had in Rangpur.

There must be some society in the college people which we
should like.

It is dryer than Rangpur.

It will give you a new kind of work.

As we have asked to be moved, and have had this apparently
first-rate station offered it would seem capricious and rather
fractious not to take it.

Etc., Etc.

On the other side are reasons against, but only one troubles me.
I want to know how you are, if you feel in spirits to take up new
work and oh! dear! to see you so much. I am ready to attack Patna
or any other place with you and will take all the trouble off your
hands. It is, I suppose, one of the best and favourite stations in Bengal.
Let us go, dear!

I am longing for news of your steamer and you.

Your loving wife who will write you no
more letters.

At their meeting in Gauhati, Henry and Annette accepted
Patna, which meant that they went to live at Bankipur, on the
Upper Ganges, no longer in Lower Bengal. On the day after
her return to Rangpur, Annette started packing to leave.

J 93

MIN ISTfy

1 do not believe that our servants are worse than others
except , of course , that you cannot expect a Khitmutgar to
do Khans amah’s work.

Henry from Rangpur to Annette in Shillong,

September 3, 1879.

It is better to be deceived and treated with ingratitude a
hundred times than to be spared such evils by having a
dead heart.

Henry to Annette, September 7, 1879.

It was very ugly to sec the quantities oj snakes which were
swimming about in the water with their heads just above.

Annette describing floods at Faridpur to her
daughter Letty, September 18, 1885.

The leeches sit in waiting even on my doorstep.

Annette from Mussoorie to Henry in Bankipur,
August 29, 1882.

Everybody looks ill except Slack. The Doctor seems at
death’s door. Coxhead looks used up and worn out , Rattray
debile and Dawson yellow. And yet they are a very tem¬
perate end quiet living station.

Henry from Bogra to Annette in Darjeeling,

January 23, 1877.

Another “ cross ” of Calcutta.

Annette in her Diary, on the beginning of her
deafness, June 14, 1874.

MINIS r/?

SERVANTS, SNAKES AND SICKNESS

A NNETTE began her Indian housekeeping for Henry
at. the end of 1876 with twenty-one servants, but this
number soon proved insufficient. It included only one
syce and one grasscutter, for they had at first only one horse,
the slow and stately “Judicial” quadruped who figures in so
many of Henry’s letters. She was a brown waler mare bought
in Calcutta for Rs. 300 (say £25), w r ith a new phaeton, which
with harness, freight to Rangpur and sundries ran to Rs. 1,131

(say £94)-

Before long Annette’s diary records: “Temptation came in
the shape of Mr. E. B. Baker’s horses. Put down our name for
two—a Cabul and a Burman.” They could not get just the
horses that they wanted, but they did acquire three more ponies,
“Daisy,’fc “Rustum” and a “Cabul.” This meant three more
syces and two more grasscutters. By June 1878 their establish¬
ment had risen to twenty-six.

This was for the quiet station of Rangpur and for a family
still small. Four years later at Bankipur, with three children and
a full social life, Annette found herself dealing with a staff of
thirty-nine. She recorded their pay, their promotions and back-
slidings, their goings and comings, month by month, in account
books which she described as “The Tools of my Trade.” She
recorded also in most cases their names, though sometimes she
got no further in description than “3 undermen” in the flower
garden; “2 under men” in the vegetable garden; and “bearer’s
son-in-law,” with otherwise unspecified duties. She added up
their total pay each month —about Rs. 150 for the original
twenty-one and nearly Rs. 200 for the later twenty-six at
Rangpur, nearly Rs. 250 for the thirty-nine at Bankipur. Taking
the rupee at is. 8d. or twelve to the £ at that time, these monthly
totals work out at £12 10s., £16 10s. and £21. The servants,
though no doubt they had some garden produce, did not get
full board in addition. They lived at home or in servant’s quarters
in the compound and they bought their rice. Annette’s original

*95

■§L

India Called Them

-one servants cost her about what one servant woul <5
tftain to-day.

In a time and country like post-war Britain when inability to
obtain domestic help of any kind, even for old people or invalids
or mothers of small children, presents itself to those who have
had servants formerly as one of the major difficulties of life, the
Indian establishments of the past appear fantastic. What were all
these people doing?

The material for answering this question is presented in the
accompanying table, which sets out Annette’s establishment,
practically as she set it out, with position, name, date of entering
service and monthly wage rate in rupees, for the first half of
1882 when she and Henry had been at Bankipur for two years.

I have put the servants in Annette’s order, adding only an English
equivalent for the servant’s occupation where necessary. I have
set out, on each side of this list for Bankipur, die smaller
establishments which Annette had at Rangpur and later at
Faridpur.

The first point emerging from diis table is diat a large pro¬
portion of the staff were outside servants. Ten of the thirty-nine
were engaged in the garden and another nine were looking after
livestock; this includes die “old woman” whose duty, as appears
from a note of Annette’s, was grinding the horses’ corn. A
number of the others were meeting needs which in organized
Western communities are met otherwise than by domestic service.
The bhesti, the mehta, and the chokidar were substitutes for a
water supply, sanitation, and police; the washerman, tailor and
carpenter were substitutes for outside contractors. The servants
occupied with livestock or in the garden were largely wanted for
the same reason. Syces and grasscutters were needed because
there were no trams or omnibuses or subways. Some of the
gardeners, in addition to supplying vegetables, had the sub¬
sidiary but essential task of pulling punkahs in hot weadier— in
default of air-conditioning and electric fans. The fowlman and
cowman were needed as the means to getting essential food. In
Rangpur Henry and Annette kept their own sheep; in Bankipur
they joined a Mutton Club. Milk and bread and meat did not
corne daily to the door in by-gone Bengal.

The organization of the milk supply for young children was a

196

Servants ? Snakes and Sickness

§L

problem. In their own station Henry and An
kept their own cow. A letter of Henry’s from Rangpv
en in the last chapter recognizes the thoughtfulness of this
animal in meeting with a bull and so producing a calf and a
supply of milk for the children when they should return from
the hills. But as the family grew this needed supplementation.
Before returning from Shillong Annette sent the following
instruction through Henry to Ramyad the faithful bearer:

Find two good cows to give (with our cow’s milk) four
seers of milk at least. I will buy or hire on seeing them. The
owners must bring the cows to be milked in the compound.
This is very important.

When they went away from their station or changed stations
the milk supply and other services had to be organized afresh.
Thus some years later a move of the children to Darjeeling
involved sending a party of servants in advance: Annette noted
with thankfulness how Ali Jan the khansamah met diem at the
door of their Darjeeling house with a good cow and a good ayah.

But supply problems were not confined to milk. In some
places other daily essentials were hard to come by. The arrange¬
ments for mutton at Rangpur and Bankipur have been noted
above. At Faridpur both meat and bread had to be brought from
Calcutta, and coal, being unobtainable, was replaced by charcoal
made locally. For drinking, water had to be brought from the
river some distance away, and boiled and filtered.

An Indian household had to be self-supplying in many
essential ways, as a household in Britain need not be. And it had
to be such that essential services could be rendered when duty
or the climate involved journeys. When Henry went visiting in
his district he had normally to be accompanied or preceded by
servants to prepare lodging and meals. When Annette went off
to Mussoorie with the youngest child, though she was going to
stay in a hotel, she took with her three servants—Sirdar, khit-
mutgar, and ayah.

There was yet another feature of life in the Indian Civil Service
calling for mention here. This was the perpetual change of
stations, with its accompaniments of finding houses, buying and
selling furniture, packing and unpacking, making weary, incon-

197

WHlST/fy.

India Called Them

§L

^^nt' journeys. The expense of these periodical uprooting!
aS<Deen stated, was for Henry and Annette an appreciable
element in their budget. The weariness would have been in¬
supportable without unlimited help from servants.

The army of servants were not of equal responsibility or
permanence. There were a few of special position who became
pillars of the establishment and trusted friends of their employer.
Such was Bisheshwar (also known as Hurree), the Sirdar or
major-domo, who had been with Henry before his first marriage
and who died in 1886 in his service. Such was Ramyad, the
bearer, sometimes described as the mate, who had also been with
Henry before his first marriage, saw him out to the end of his
service in India and returned to look after him when, many years
later, he paid his scholar’s pilgrimage to India. Such was Gogram,
the darwan, who had been with Annette before her marriage in
the school in Baniapookur Lane. Such was the khansamah Ali
Jan who, though absent for part of the time in Faridpur, returned
to Henry in Calcutta. Such was Bogmonia the ayah, who,
though a woman, was always one of the most highly paid servants.

The largest wage recorded by Annette was for the dhobi or
launderer, Rs. 21, but it seems probable that, from this, he would
have to pay for assistants. The highest individual rates at Bankipur
were Rs. 14 for Kedar Bux the coachman; Rs. 12 for Ali Jan the
khansamah or butler; Rs. 12 for Phojdar Ram the bawachi or
cook; Rs. 10 each for Bisheshwar the Sirdar or major-domo, for
Tunnykhan the dirzee or tailor, for Punnoo the mistree or
joiner, and for Bogmonia the ayah or nurse. The lowest monthly
rates ran down to Rs. 3 for the bearer’s son-in-law, and Rs. 2
for a chokra or boy, who not unreasonably left to better himself,
and for the “old woman” who presumably could not do so.
The commonest out-door rate, as for grooms, sweepers and
water-carriers, was Rs. 6, or taking the rupee at is. 8d., say £12
a year. The Rs. 12 a month paid to the most responsible servants
corresponded to about £24 a year.

Unlimited domestic service was needed to make work and life
possible for a European and his family in an unorganized,
unmechanized community. Servants were there in plenty; they
cost very little per head; they took the place inefficiently of the

198

MINISr^

Servants , Snakes and Sickness

metalled roads, mech

water supply, sanitation,

_ 3rt and shops of Western communities. But by-gone
ngal was not only a place of deficiencies. It was inhabited also
by a variety of positive pests. It was a place of perpetual lassitude
and recurrent sickness.

The most dramatic of the pests were the snakes. The
prevalence of these in Rangpur and their special fondness for
the judge’s house have been noted already,- cobras crop up
repeatedly in the letters and the diary of that time. They made
repellent appearances later at Faridpur. They do not seem to be
mentioned at Bankipur.

Snakes, however exciting, caused less inconvenience and
fewer deaths than the mosquito, whose connection with malaria
was not then understood. And a notable variety of minor pests
presented themselves in one place or another.

At Faridpur, for instance, there was a plague of “jungly pigs,”
wild animals destructive of crops and quite ready to attack men.
Sometimes the Government offered a reward for the destruction
of these pigs. When Government parsimony stopped this,
Annette persuaded Henry to step into the breach; she explained
to the children that the Government had no money to spare for
killing pigs in 1885, because they had spent so much in preparing
for war with Russia. A letter of hers to Letty in England dealing
with the pigs describes also an appearance of snakes.

Faridpur, 18/9/85.

I am writing before mail day because of the floods which make the
uains very uncertain. Indeed we do not know when letters will come
or when they will reach Calcutta. I told you that Papa had given me
100 rupees to spend on having wild pigs killed. We are just at the end
of the money and I think when it is quite gone there will have been-
75 P'g s killed. Perhaps we need not have given such large rewards
and then we should have had more pigs killed. . . . To-day when I
got up there was a cart standing before the door with four pigs on it
waiting for me to see. The man who brought them has killed a great
many and he has bought himself a new gun, a nice little light gun
out of the money.

... A very curious thing has happened about the floods. The
railway embankment is higher than most of the land on either side.
Ab kinds of animals have consequently taken refuge on it the papers

1 m

India Called Them

especially immense numbers of snakes. A man triei
ph them in one place but it was not comfortable to b<Tso
near and he did not succeed. A person who came here by train three
days ago told me it was very ugly to see the quantities of snakes which
were swimming about in the water with their heads just above.

Another of Annette’s letters of this time gave a catalogue of
unpleasant denizens of Faridpur;, jungly pigs, a wild buffalo, a
wild cat, a porcupine, a mad jackal and a cobra in the thatch.
“Do you like all these dreadful stories?” she asked her son of six.
He probably did.

At Rangpur one October there was a plague of pariah dogs
going mad in the hot weather. Henry found it his duty to
borrow a gun and go out to shoot them. One of the beasts made
its way into the house upstairs.

At Banldpur the only plague recorded by Annette is scorpions,
though there was also a rumour that the youngest child had
been bitten by a spider.

At Mussoorie there were flies, fleas and, most abundantly,
leeches. Annette told her daughter Letty all about them:

Mussoorie, 26/8/82.

My dear Little Woman,

I am going to write you a long letter so I have taken a large
sheet of paper. I am going to tell you about a walk I went this afternoon
to a place called “Mossy Falls.” Miss Poppy Bean came at four o’clock
to go with me. Tutu and I got info the dandy and Miss Poppy walked
beside us downhill over stones till we came to a place where it said
“Tivoli Gardens. No dog: admitted.” Well! we had no dogs with
us so we went on. I got out of the dandy and went down a winding
road down and down amongst beautiful ferns and under trees. At
length we came to a gate where we found a man who asked us to pay
eight annas each which of course we did and then we entered the
Tivoli Gardens. At first they seemed just like the rest of the jungle
and we wondered why we were asked to pay eight annas. Then we
passed a large cage made of wood which we were told was a leopard’s
cage and there was a smaller box close to the larger with a quantity
of bones in it. Still we went on and still down and it became very warm.
Then we turned a corner and came to a place where there w r as a
building and where were several tennis and badminton courts. Here
Tutu and tl ie bearer and die dandy stayed but Miss Poppy and I went

200

Servants , Snakes and Sickness

zlown towards die sound of water. I cannot tell you how p
JT^Ulace was—the banks covered witli the loveliest flowers and leaves
and down at the bottom the clear water running amongst grey stones.
We found seats and bridges and a little house to sit in—and we went
alortg the bank of the stream always admiring the lovely things we
saw growing round us. We did noY see a living creature—not even a
bird. At last we came to the “Mossy Falls”—a place where a number
of little waterfalls ran down a mossy bank to the larger stream. It is
a very pretty place and the ferns and flowers and leaves are most
beautiful. We gathered some and then climbed the hill to Tutu. She
was playing with some dahlias and very happy.

We sat down to rest a little and Miss Poppy said to me—“Look
how I have cut myself” and showed me that just above her boot her
stocking was covered with blood. I said to her “It is not a cut, it is a
leech-bite,” and there w r as a black leech in the middle of the red spot.
I looked and saw several other leeches hanging round her boot and
then I looked at my own feet. Oh! Letty! what did I see? I had on
shoes, not boots, and I saw quantities of black leeches biting me—
nasty fat black creatures. I could not touch them so I stretched my
feet out and called the bearer. So Sirdar came and a jampani and pulled
off all they could see and then Miss Poppy and I went into a room and
took off our stockings and found many more. I was bitten in twenty-
five places and diese bled a great deal though they did not hurt at
all. . . .

There followed in the letter an account with diagrams of what
leeches looked like and how they walked.

Their head and tail are their legs. You must ask Papa to explain
this and ask him if he remembers one walking about on Mamma’s bed
when you were bom! Pussy brought him up from the garden we
thought.

Henry and Annette, as their lives showed, were both people
of magnificent natural healdifulness. He lived to near the end of
his 93rd year, she well into her 87th year. Each of them later, in
England, was unceasingly energetic, never idle, and practically
never unwell.

In India, Annette was recurrently ailing herself, diough she
never let this interfere -with the fullest possible domestic, social
and literary life. She was continually having one child or another
laid low by fever or dysentery. She had in her time to fight diree

201

MINISr^

India Called Them

§L

battles with death—one for herself at Shillong in
r her younger son in Calcutta and Arrah in 1885-86; one
Sr her elder son in Darjeeling in 1889. She had to set herself
with all her might to bring her younger daughter round to
health at Mussoorie in 1882. Of the six members of the family,
only Henry himself and the first-born, Letty, were not at one
time or other in desperate danger through disease in India. Two
of the three pitched battles with death and the'light for her
younger daughter at Mussoorie, Annette won; one of the three
she seemed to win at first, but she lost it in the end. The first of
these battles —at Shillong against cholera—has been recorded
already. The others will be spoken of in their place.

Annette herself, in her first years in Calcutta, suffered the
beginning of a disability of deafness which grew on her remorse¬
lessly but which she never allowed to defeat her. When she first
came to India her hearing was normal; she had a beautiful voice
and she sang. Half-way through her second year in India, when
she was nearly 32, came the^illness and the threatened abscess in
her left ear which she described in her diary as another cross of
Calcutta. When, on her honeymoon, she reached England in
May 1875 a lniost her first visit was to an aurist. This was the
beginning of a struggle carried on for eleven years. Whenever
she was in England she spent much time and money in visiting
nasal and aural surgeons; they hurt her horribly, and in the end
they could not check the growing deafness. By 35 she had begun
to use ear-trumpets. By 40 her jampani at Mussoorie had realized
that she could not hear a runaway horse coming. By 43 she felt
her deafness extremely at a party. After one last savage bout
with an aurist in her 44th year she gave up the chase. She resigned
herself to trumpets of growing complexity. She never resigned
herself to being cut off by her disability from the fullest social life.
Annette’s growing deafness was a fact which for all practical
purposes she disregarded.

Life in India for those who ruled it has always been life with
trains of servants Henry and Annette were people of relatively
humble position: their domestic forces were modest as compared
with others recorded in India. When in 1774 Sir Phillip Francis
went to Calcutta as one of the governing Council, he and his

202

MINI STff

Servants , Snakes and Sickness

-in-law Macrobie had iio servants to wait on a famil
^"people. Macrobie found both

(fiT

ityjwLj

__ found both their number and their

behaviour monstrous; he attributed to the servants every bad
quality except drunkenness and insolence.

To superintend this tribe of devils and their separate departments
we have a monstrous collection of banyans chief and subordinate with
their trains of clerks, who fill a large room and are constantly employed
in controlling or rather comiiving at one another’s accounts. 1

The picture presented by Henry’s establishments a hundred
years later, with Annette as her own banyan, is different and
more pleasant. There were, of course, occasional troubles with
the-servants. Some of these troubles were of a type peculiar to
India. “I told Sirdar,’ 5 wrote Annette in one of jher letters from
Mussoorie, “about Mahomad Nowab’s death”—through eating
opium. “He said: everyone eats opium—our dhobi and his
brother and his little boy. I said I would cut their pay if I saw
its results (as I once did with Putty).”

There was another occasion, in Darjeeling, when two of
Annette’s servants—Kaloo and Kanchi—already man and wife by
their old lights, both embraced Christianity and were married
again in church. Annette took much trouble to impress upon
them the duties of their new condition—including the spending
of Sunday mornings at church rather than in the bazaar. Shortly
after, Kanchi appeared in tears with a battered bleeding face.

# ls Kaloo s work,” said Annette, and sent a message that,
if he laid hands again on Kanchi, she would hand him over to
the police. Later it appeared that Kanchi as well as Kaloo had
had a stick and that the subject of their quarrel was the question
of going to church.

There might be other troubles of a more familiar type, though
arising out of Indian conditions. At one moment of her stay in
Shillong Annette found herself with no table servant, cook or
masalchi. There was a quarrel between the Indian servants she
had taken with her from Rangpur and her English nurse; the
servants became disrespectful and were dismissed summarily by
Annette. This imbroglio was one of three causes of vexation

. 1 Echoes from Old Calcutta , by H. F.. Busteed. Macrobie's letter describing his staff
is at p. 126 of the second edition. (Thacker Spink, 1888.)

203

India Called Them

Henry discovered at that time in Annette, but
out himself it was all but inevitable. The servants
Spected to be away from their Rangpur homes for two or three
months at most; by Annette’s illness and convalescence they
were kept for six months. Through the same cause they were
forced to submit to the monstrous regiment of a woman. “You
may depend upon it,” wrote Henry, “that your nurse is in some
shape or other at the bottom of your troubles. It may not be
her fault, but her position is a difficult one, and natives are
unwilling enough to be under a woman of any sort and still more
when she is a collateral and not Sahib’s wife.” There followed
from Henry some characteristic comments on the master and
servant relation in general, an attempted quotation from
Kingsley’s Life which he was reading at the moment, and an
artful but genuine piece of self-depreciation.

Rangpur, 3/9/79.

The relationship of Master and Servant has perhaps from the
earliest times been out of joint. We cannot make it work smoothly
and can only hope that in the course of centuries it may be put into
good order. There is a certain amount of non-naturalness about it
and it is not founded on any bed-rock.

I don't believe that our servants are worse than others except, of
course, that you cannot expect a Khitmutgar to do Khansamah’s work.

7 / 9 / 79 -

Kingsley has a passage about treating servants only as such and
recognising only the cash nexus which I should have liked to have
quoted to you apropos of Mrs. Nation and Mrs. Ridsdale but I cannot
find it. Remember that it is better to be deceived and treated with
ingratitude a hundred times than to be spared such evils by having a
dead heart .

26/9/79.

I have always said, dearest, that your standard is too high. It is a
fault, if it be one, of your sex and it is also the fault of all men who
have not mixed much with the world. In many cases as in yours the
fault comes from exceptional purity. You have never grievously
sinned or erred yourself, and so have the severity of an Ithuriel.
Your poor husband has committed so many sins and errors that he
has no difficulty in putting himself in the place of the most abandoned
rascal and looking at the thing from his point of view.

3104

misT/t

Servants, Snakes and Sickness

ows that if he had been a Bengali taken from his hor
ere against his wish and subjected to two persons of an inf
is view) he would have been irritated and possibly disrespectful.
He knows, too, at the same time that when he became disrespectful his
mistress was right in dismissing him.

The servant imbroglio was settled happily by mutual con¬
cessions. Henry admitted to Annette, not without trepidation,
that when die servants got back to Rangpur from die hills he
had paid diem their travelling expenses. Annette raised no
objecdon and even offered to take back die cook if Henry wished
it. But Henry had no such wish:

26/9/79.

I always knew that the man was bad and I quite adhere to my
description of him as an insolent rascal. But I was sorry for him, and
still more for his son. ... I am sure diat they could not have wanted
to be dismissed and to be left hundreds of miles from their home and
on top of a hill.

This trouble at Shillong arose from exceptional causes. The
general relation of master and servant in Henry and Annette's
household was easy and stable. This applied not only to five
or six special servants who became lasdng friends. It was their
experience with most servants. When Henry and Annette
left Bankipur and India on furlough in the spring of 1883,
practically die whole of their vast domestic staff had been with
them for three years at least. The relation even to purely casual
employees, like the jampanies who carried Annette and her
youngest daughter about in Mussoorie, had its pleasant features.

Mussoorie, 31/8/82.

One of my jampanies has had bad fever so I sent diis afternoon
and bought quinine for him. He seemed so grateful. I like my jam¬
panies though they are I suppose ignorant creatures. They have very
kindly ways to Tutu and today when I was alone and I did not hear
a horse coming behind me, my escort ran forward so politely and
motioned me aside, I said “Accha” to him and he gave me such a
smile and salaam. It is nothing in words but the protecting kindness
of the ugly little man touched me. He knew I could not hear. He is
a queer mortal and is made to wait on us, all day, by tire others. He
fetches hot water, runs errands for the servants and guaids the

20s

MIN/Sr^

India Called Them

ah. Today as we neared home I saw him run up a bank (wii
tier) and gather a bunch of single dahlias for Tutu.

§L

The relation to the chief servants is illustrated by die illness
and death of Hurree after fifteen years of service. Annette described
Hurree’s last illness to the children in Southport — how he would
not eat what the other servants brought him but when Annette
went to him opened his mouth like a good man; how she put
into this mouth soup and port wine and other things forbidden
to Hindus.

You know that Hindus do not eat beef nor drink wine but when
poor Hurree seemed likely to die we said he must take beef soup and
drink wine and that we would give his brahmin priest money to
forgive him. He does not know what he is getting but of course the
other servants know and by-and-by when he is better, they will not
eat with him, because he will have lost caste by eating our English
food. It is better for him to eat it than die, is it not? I think he is ready
to take anything I will give him. Poor fellow! he looks at me with
such pitiful eyes when I go to see him.

But not even Annette could save Hurree. A week later she was
writing to Letty.

Ballygunge, 18/1/86.

My Dear Letty,

I have several things to tell you and one is not gay but still
I should tell you.

I wonder if you remember Hurree, die head bearer who was so
very kind to all of you. He has been your father’s servant for fifteen
years and has been a good and faithful servant. When you were bom,
he was the first person after Papa who nursed you for your father took
you out of my room and laid you in his arms. He taught you to say
your letters in Hindi! He taught you to say “Papa” and “Mamma.”
He was very good indeed to Tutu when she was ill in Mussoorie
with Mamma. Indeed he was good to you all and we are very much
obliged to him for all his kindness. He was very ill in the beginning
of December when he was left behind in Faridpur to look after our
things. Then in die middle of the month we sent Ramyad to fetch
him here. They passed each other on the way and poor Hurree came
to this house. He lay in a very cold room at first, in the servants’
quarters then we had him taken up to a nice warm room in the house.
We had the doctor to him very often and did all we could but it was

206

Servants , Snakes and Sickness

se! On Monday morning soon after I had been to see
*ather came and said “I am afraid poor Hurree is dying,
rried off to him and gave him brandy and soup but it was all of no
use. He held my hand and closed his eyes and was gone without any
pain. I told Ramyad to say to him that we would take care of his
children and his wife but I do not know whether he understood at all.
It was not at all dreadful to see him die and no one would have been
afraid. He was just tired of living and of being so weak and so he
went to sleep. His widow snatched oft' the little coloured star which
she wore on her forehead and cried dreadfully; then she broke all the
glass bracelets which she had on her arms. Hurree has six daughters;
three are married and three have to be. Hindus think that every
woman must be married so I, with Papa’s help and consent, shall help
them. The girls are engaged (as we say) to be married. They will
perhaps be married this year, if the priest says it will be right. We
shall give each of them fifty rupees and then the little one will have
fifty when she is married. Besides this your father will allow them
something to live on till all are married and even then perhaps he will
give the widow and Ilurree’s old sister some money each month.
\ ou see, when servants are faithful it is right to help them in every way.

207

MINIS TQy

I think you would like to hear all about the Beveridges
party. It was something quite new up here and it brought
together not only Europeans and natives but Hindus and
Mahomedans , Beharis and Bengalis.

Mrs. Grierson from Bankipur to her brother in England,
September 16, 1881.

Mrs. Joll says she is coming to me to get hints on the art
of chaperonage .

Henry from Bankipur to Annette in Mussoorie,
October 3, 1882.

It is 9 a.m. and the children are just coming in from under
the big tree. It is cool or at least so cloudy now that they
can sit till late. . . •

Henry from Bankipur to Annette in Mussoorie,
September 2, 1882.

Am I a good judge , I wonder? I think I do good here , but
what is the real fact ?

Henry from Bankipur to Annette in Mussoorie,
September 9, 1882.

The comet is very beautifuljust now . It is standing over the
trees at our eastern gate like the flaming sword of the Angel
who guarded Paradise when man was driven out of it.
1 have not a Milton here but I daresay he might furnish a
quotation in this place.

Henry from Bankipur to Annette in Mussoorie,
October 4, 1882.

Chapter XI

THE

FAMILY HAS A HOME

H ENRY’S appointment to Patna gave Annette for the
first time, and as it proved for the last time, a home in
India where all the family could be together. Patna was
in Bengal but not in Lower Bengal; it lay half-way up the course
of the Ganges; by comparison with many other stations Bankipur,
where the Patna judge had his residence, was almost a health
resort. For nearly two-and-a-half years Annette, first with two
children and later with a third child, was continuously with
Henry in Bankipur; the whole family were together again in a
trip to Australia; after a separation, when the illness of her
youngest drove Annette to the hills at Mussoorie, they were
together again at Bankipur till, in the spring of 1883, Henry took
his second furlough.

Bankipur was tile nearest thing to a settled home together that
Henry and Annette ever had in India. They made lasting friends
there. They both went back there whenever occasion oflered, in
journeying across India. They found there always their fill of
Station Society.

Rangpur had been a small station—Henry called it a “hole”—
with very limited society. When the whole station of Rangpur
came to dinner with Henry and Annette there were not more
than a dozen at table: Patna was a larger and altogether more
lively affair. Annette’s diary recorded repeatedly “dinner party”
or “large dinner party” at home, alternately with dining out.
When she gave a dance three months after arrival, sixty people
came and nearly half of them returned on the following evening
to finish the feast. Thrice during Henry’s office the station was
favoured by a visit from the Lieutenant-Governor. On the first
occasion,, shortly before the birth of Tutu, Annette was in
retirement. On the second occasion a great dinner to 100 people
was given by a distinguished Indian, but the management of it
fell on Henry and Annette. On the third occasion they themselves
gave an “International Party” to 160 people.

These two, of course, in no way confined their social inter-

209

India Called Them

to Europeans. They were continually visiting or I_ _

by Indian friends. They introduced to Bankipur the idea
of an International Party. One such event was described in a
letter by one of the visitors—Mrs. George Grierson, whose
husband became in due course Sir George Grierson, O.M., and
the distinguished Editor of the Linguistic Survey .

Bankipur, 16/9/81.

My dearest Maurice,

I think you would like to hear all about the Beveridges’ party.
It was something quite new up here, tho’ they often have them in
Bengal. And it brought together not only Europeans and natives, but
also Hindus and Mahomedans, Beharis and Bengalis. At first it seemed
as if there would be great difficulty about the food part of the per¬
formance, for Mails, must eat by themselves and each Hindu caste
must also eat alone. The difficulty was solved by having tents put up
in the compound for each. Native gentlemen helped in this, lending
tents, and having them put up. All thro* natives were eager to help
the servants of the house, sparing no trouble. Mrs. B. sent out
invitations (printed) for an “International Evening Party” and she
says all the answers were most polite and proper, only expressing
more of the “honour felt” &c. One who came to call asked what time
he was to come and on hearing half past nine, “Oh, said he, there
will be so many then. I shall come at nine.” And this happy idea
struck so many, that they began to arrive at half past eight, and when
we got there at about 20 minutes to ten, not only were they all there,
but the amusements were rapidly becoming exhausted. It is, as I have
told you, a very nice house, and all the rooms were well lighted and
thrown open, a fact which impressed the guests very much, their
w'ays are so different. The verandahs were lighted up with Chinese
lanterns, and one was devoted to George’s curiosities, his type-writer,
telephone and electric pen. Unfortunately the Europeans chiefly
engrossed the telephone; however, it I daresay was slightly too
scientific for the Indians. The type-writer delighted them much more
and they eagerly pressed down the letters one after another and eagerly
looked at the word they had printed. Two rooms were devoted to
pictures (hung on to red curtains stretched along the walls) and ancient
Persian manuscripts and other things which might interest, and in
another verandah were some native musicians. Finally the military
band played at mtervals, so you see there was no lack of amusements.
The first thing that struck us on arriving was the heavy smell of
sandalwood and rose-w'ater filling the house. Of course, being got up

210

The Family Has a Home

^divalent to Sunday go to meetings they were all well rub
7 the former. The heat was tremendous, in spite of punka]
ancfwe made our way to the centre of attraction, the Tetara players
who were sitting on the ground in a verandah, surrounded with a
crowd. Two men played long instruments with strings, and on a little
drum. The chief performer really played very well, and went over and
over “We won’t go home till morning” at least the first two lines of
it with native shanty additions, his head wagging about all the time
as if it would tumble off at the least touch, till one longed to beg him
to change it a little. Natives could listen forever apparently, but our
more volatile dispositions prompted us to move about, so with another
lady, and escorted by the tiny Mahomedan barrister who had been
“home” and was dressed with great propriety in neat swallowtails,
we took a peep into the Mahomedan supper tent, where long tables
were spread with sweet-meats and fruits and chairs were placed.
Then we paid a visit to hard-working G. showing off his curiosities
with other people’s help, and then I went and sat in the “sumptious”
(as the native papers say) drawing-room, and watched the crowd of
dark men, all in shiny boots, and narrow white trousers, white and
dark coats and puggarees or gay caps. Suddenly Mrs. B. came up to
me and putting her arm round my neck, gave me a kiss, saying she
had not seen me before. This no doubt they all thought exactly right,
since she did it. After this George and I played, and they all stared
fixedly at his twiddling and flourishing as we tortured the Blue Bells
of Scotland in all kinds of ways. I am sure they did not like the sound,
though they were far too polite to say so. Some Mahomedans sang
too, after many nervous attempts to begin. We can’t find any harmony
in their music either, though a little of it is interesting as a curiosity.
Then came supper, each party in its own place. Only several of our
gentlemen ate with the Mahs. and two of them with us. A ham had
been provided for the bandmen’s supper, but it was kept far away
from the house lest “the accursed flesh” should be seen by the Faithful.
A very high up old gentleman came up after supper and squirted rose¬
water into our faces. This was a great piece of courtesy, so we bore
it as well as we could. One boy amused me very much. In all the heat,
he had a thick English woollen comforter round his neck, the ends
gracefully hanging down in front. He evidently thought himself got
up k 1 ’Anglais but he must have been dreadfully uncomfortable. We
all departed at 12, and everyone seemed greatly pleased. Some of the
notices written by natives in the English local papers are very amusing.
I must give you an extract or two. There is a description of Mr. Paul.
“Mr. Paul made himself very sociable by his good natured simple

211

MIN/Sr^

India Called Them

ant talk on Sunday (!) subjects.” Sunday is supposed tc^j
You can imagine Mr. Paul’s delight at this portrait of himSetl
to us “Mr. & Mrs. Grierson entertained the company with some
choice times (presumably tunes) on the Piano.” And here is one of
the many encomiums on Mrs. B. “To the whole assembly of guests
the ineffable grace of her manners, and the kind attention which Mrs.
Beveridge shewed to all, was highly gratifying.” Then “the noble and
beauteous guests were set down” &c. Altogether I think it has been
very successful and I hope there will be a great many more given.

At Rangpur there had been one eligible and well-seasoned
bachelor with no one to catch him. At Bankipur there were a
number of young ladies, staying with parents or friends, and
there were swains for them to compete for. Henry and Annette,
at the full tide of their social activity, planned to add to the
number of young ladies. They suggested to Annette’s step¬
mother that her daughter, Kate Akroyd, then about 24 years
of age, should come out to them in India, but nothing came of
this invitation. They suggested then to Mrs. Goldie that her
second daughter Annie, Jeanie’s sister, should come out, and
this was accepted. Annie—also about 24 years old—arrived for
the cold weather of 1881-82; she joined Henry and Annette in
their expedition to Australia in the following May and June, and
she duly found a husband. But, apart from this, Annie’s visit was
not regarded by Henry and Annette as a success and led to a
good deal of heart-burning. Annette’s view was that she had
no objection to Annie’s marriage, but did object to her method
of bringing it about. Happily the episode did not lead to any
breach in the friendship with Mrs. Goldie.

The voyage to Australia in May and June 1882 enabled Henry
to meet a cousin—Adam Adamson, son of his father’s elder
sister Elizabedi; one of this cousin’s letters described the sensation
caused on arrival by the retinue of Indian servants which accom¬
panied Henry and Annette even to Australia. This family voyage ~-
was made largely in search of health and strength for Annette and
the children. But when Annette’s diary resumes at the end of July
it records the youngest child Tutu as “very ill,” while Annette
herself had fever. So on August 4th: “I decided to obey the
doctor and take Tutu to Mussoorie.” She set forth a few days
later.

212

The Family Has a Home

was left in charge of the house and the rest of
and the two elder children, Letty turned five, Bhaia not
yet three-and-a-half. To help him there appears die first of many
Frauleins. Annette was clear that German was a language that
her children should learn as soon as they learned anydiing, and
their conversation became an easy blend of English, German
and Hindustani. How this first Fraulein swung into Annette’s
orbit is unknown. But the enquiring Henry elicited her age—as
21 —and many surprising facts about her. If Fraulein Gause’s
accounts of herself were even tolerably correct, she was no
ordinary governess. She set out with the family for Europe in
April 1883 but there she leaves the story. Emma Vogel—the real
Fraulein of the children’s abiding love—came later.

Henry, of course, was not left to himself and Fraulein Gause
and the children in Bankipur. The station was a society in which
everyone knew everyone and all were continually in and out of
one another’s houses, in which anything diat happened to anyone
was die subject of concern to the rest. “Everybody,” reported
Henry to Annette, “is distressed to see pretty Mrs. Joll growing
so stout and coarse looking.” Of course, kind friends supplied
die malicious explanation: “The Cummins say she takes two
botdes of beer a day and no exercise. If she goes on, she and
her husband will be like the Long Dragoon and his wife one of
whom was like a mile and the other like a milestone.”

Henry—with perennial interest in his fellow men and women

gladly constituted himself Annette’s purveyor of gossip.

Collinson and Miss Metcalfe are much togedier and are known by
the name of the two halves. In their case two halves do not make one
whole.

I praised up Miss Halliday to Grindley and he said she was “Chalks”
whereby I understand the young man was expressing fervent admira¬
tion.

Mrs. Halliday hints at Mr. Jenings of the Police (the Railway
Inspector) having had a disappointment, but will not give me par¬
ticulars which is hard on your Special Correspondent.

He reported how one romance reached its appointed end of a
wedding, and that the mother of the bride w'as planning at once
to bring another daughter out from England. He saw another
romance get on to the wrong but not unusual track, of a swain

213

India Called Them

betrothed was on the way out to join her family
n and marry him, going over bag and baggage before^
arrival to another young lady and her family. He reported how
the mother of die second young lady gave die swain till the
25th, her daughter’s birthday, to declare himself or be forbidden
die house, how he did declare himself by marching one Sunday
to service with the second young lady and seating himself with
her in the choir, how thereupon the parents of die first young
lady broke off their devotions and marched out of church.

Henry added to his opportunities of gossip by proposing,
subject to Annette’s approval, to have two stray young ladies
to stay with him. Annette made no objection. “Do have the Miss
Cummins to stay if you like dear!” she wrote from Mussoorie.
“It would be original, but with Fraulein and two young ladies
numbers would perhaps make up for quality of chaperon—
quality being represented by the wedding ring.” Henry soon
found himself chaperoning another romance.

Bankipur, 27/9/82.

The Miss Cummins stay here for the wedding and then go to the
Griersons. They are blithe girls and sing sweetly but they are rather
hard and bitter. A step-mother seems to have spoiled their lives in
some way. . . . Robson pays much attention to Miss E. Cummin
but it will come to nothing. I am afraid she fell in his estimation by
not knowing who the Lily Maid of Astolat was. . . .

29/9/82.

I was working today from 5 a.m. and so about three I got dead
tired in Cuttcherry. I came home about 4 and rested for a couple
of hours —walking about in the garden &c., and now sit down to
write to you.

Mr. Robson is paying a great deal of attention to Miss Ellen
Cummin. I hope that if he does not mean anything the girl will not
get too fond of him. I am not sure if it would be a happy union. He
is a petit maltre and she is too free with her tongue. I am not sure if
she has a heart, but I won’t believe that an Irish girl is without one.

1/10/82.

. . . Miss Ellen Cummin announced to me this morning her
engagement to Mr. Robson. Will they be happy? She is an attractive
girl and he has attractions too, but perhaps they are both a little
selfish and exacting.

214

MINIS/-/?

India Called Them

®L

Mussoorie, 20/8/

^g^g^holiday produced me a nice long letter as I hoped. I don t
know about Mussoorie as a permanent residence (I never can think
of any place out of England as permanent) but I think this: the
question of retirement must be settled by you. If you wish to return
to India after furlough, then I would say— Buy a home here and bring
out Fraulein and an English nurse so as to give the children proper
influences and make this headquarters for them during the next (say)
five years until they are ready for advanced education. I should think
it unwise to give up the furlough. There must among so many schools
be a good body of permanent residents here. The place is very charm¬
ing, accessible (only three hours of ghaut) moderate in prices. Will
you come up and see it? And we can look at houses and so collect
facts for future digestion. The eighteen months furlough may put
new heart and life into us both and even Sessions regain their charm.

Bankipur, 26/8/82.

I think of taking furlough in March and of writing a scathing and
yet conservative and constructive book on the administration of
Justice in Bengal. How would it do to spend part of the furlough in
Mussoorie ?

I am so glad that Tutu has got roses. And you, have you not got
any? If you don’t have them by October I will send you home but
I do hope that I won’t need to do that. I expect to win a blooming
bride when I catch hold of you again. I won’t send you away again
in a hurry. In spite of my composure I am often desoriente all alone
here. The servants are very good and so are the children but I miss
my wife.

Mussoorie, 29/8/82.

... I cannot be sorry you should miss me. As for me I cannot let
myself think too much about you because I feel too painful a tightening
of my heart strings. However I am holding on I have brought Tutu
to complete health again and am much better myself. I believe that
the isolation is very good for me. Yesterday I felt a strange kind of
peace as though the world had gone a space away from me and ett
me free with reality—with all my loves and my aspirations unalloyed
by the worries and annoyances of petty cares which seem to lave
choked me for some months.

As to Furlough I do not think a fifth child would add to our happiness
and I cannot approve of your spending holiday on anything con-
nected with India.

232

SCOTTISH INTERLUDE

A S the year of the comet drew to a close, Henry neared
the completion of twenty-five years of Indian service.
He had accumulated a claim to nearly two years of fur¬
lough. He had earned his pension, and from furlough could
retire altogether to start at 46 a new life in Britain. What should
he do ? Naturally this depended to some extent on prospects in
Britain. Could he find useful work to do there? On the other
side, what were the prospects in India?

It is clear from Henry’s letters that some of his judgments
had been criticized by the High Court, but this did not mean
that he could not hope for promotion to that court in due course
himself. He had held as District and Sessions Judge one of the
favourite stations in India. Annette had succeeded socially in her
attack on Patna.

Naturally there was much discussion between Henry in
Bankipur and Annette in Mussoorie as to what should happen
next.

Bankipur, 17/8/82.

Today is a holiday and I have spent it so far very peaceably in
reading Comte and talking to Letty.

The Sessions are still going on but somehow they interest me less
than they did. I feel as if for a time I had got into a placid backwater,
and were out of the swim of things. The witchery of India and Indian
life comes more vividly before one at such times. I see myself slowly
sailing up the river to join my first station at Mymensing, I see the
rice fields and indigo lands and factories of Jessore and Nuddia and
then I come to the gloomy tidal creeks of the Sunderbans and the
weary trackings along them which I have experienced. The beautiful
trees that one has seen, the garish blossoms of Sylhet, the almond
trees of Rangpur, the lotuses and the lilies rise up before one
and one feels loth to say that one’s Indian life is coming to a
close. . . .

... Do you think Mussoorie would do for a permanent residence
for us? They say October is one of the best months in it.

231

MIN/S7*y

The Family Has a Home

oil says she is coming to me to get hints in the art^of
^ronage.

4/10/82.

Our pair of lovers are still full of one another. Mrs. Dyson thinks
that Robson is throwing himself away and Mrs. Joll thinks that Ellen
is far too good for him. Miss Ellen is certainly clever and plays and
paints and speaks French well. But she has dreadfully little book
education and I fear is not ashamed of the deficiency. Bookish Mr.
Robson is trying to educate her but he will find that “no go.”

However Henry might try to find good in his young lady
guests, the Fraulein already in his house made no such effort.
She did not like the Cummin girls at all. They were %u frei in
their ways and too disregarding of the children.

As Henry suspected, Fraulein had a temper of her own. She
had also a large range of languages, claiming Greek, Arabic,
French, Italian, etc., and a curious history, real or imagined.

9/10/82.

She says you are so good a mother and that mothers in India are
generally so gleichgultig—a fact which I energetically denied. I
must read her remarks on Egypt some day.

4/10/82.

I had a long talk with Fraulein last night. Her ambition is to rival
° r surpass Ida Pfeiffer and to travel everywhere—even among the
cannibals of Sumatra. Then she would like to study at the University
and highest goal of all to be a member of the Berlin Geographical
Society. She writes her travels and is now sending them home to a
German illustrated newspaper whose editor she knows. She says that
her great wish is to show that German women can be emancipated
and can travel as well as men. German girls are much behind she says,
and the men always tell them that the only thing they have to do is
to get married. I am not sure if her travels will reassure people. She
came out in the Thames from Suez and was at Ceylon when we were
there. She arrived on 27th April I think. . . . She went and saw
the tanks at Aden alone, she drove to Wahwelia alone, and she walked
to Buona Vista alone. There she had a horrible adventure. She turned
off the road to the Mission and was gathering flowers in the jungle
when two natives attacked her. One seized her by the back of the

2 IS H

India Called Them

id the other by her hands. They tried to strip off her cfl
7 object apparently being to ravish her. She struggled, she^
lem with her umbrella, she scratched them. Dreieiniger Gott, she
cries in her journal, I had the strength of three men. At last they let
her go and she bounded over the rocks. On she rushed over that
dreadfully stony peninsula, her one thought being how to escape and
she fancying every moment her neck was being seized from behind.
She came to a cliff but went down it somehow and came to a fisher¬
man’s hut. The fisherman wonderingly asked how she came there and
would not believe that she had come over the rocks. However they
gave her water (it was then 2 p.m. on an April day!) and then after a
while she w’ent on up to the white wall and die old cannon diat we
saw. Luckily for her a boat from die Thames was taking in sand at
Watering Point and it took her on board. You know I suppose diat
she climbed the Pyramids. Her mother died when she -was bom and
her fadier when she was 9. She has no home dudes or home. I doubt
if she is tameable. Under her placid German exterior lurks a Bedouin
spirit.

It is not, perhaps, surprising diat die last record of this
Fraulein, some years later, is in Bangkok, and as having, under
the advice of her consul, passed herself off as married. But Henry
and Annette thought her an excellent governess and agreed with
one another to raise her salary.

Henry’s gossip was not confined to romances, and with his
tender heart went a critical judgment.

4/10/82.

I dined at Mrs. B’s on Monday. Mrs. M. is foolishly fond of dogs
and not as pretty as I at first diought her. She sings^ French songs
prettily. Mrs. B. has no weaknesses but I fear no softnesses either.
She says that she is going home on account of her boy. She says that
he is learning bad words from the natives and so she must remove
them from him. Poor child, he is only 2%. The truth is that she
troubles herself very little about him and is hardly ever to be seen
with him. One cannot make elaborate toilettes and play lawn tennis
every evening and also look after baby. She is one of the gleichgultig
Anglo-Indian mothers that Fraulein speaks of.

29/8/82.

Fraulein was treated with great consideration by Tweedie and
dined with us when the D’s came. Mr. & Mrs. D’s relations to one
another remind me of Jeannie ... I should think her adoration of

216

1 Mi i

The Family Has a Home

husband would be likely to do him harm. However
o persistently at the other side of die stuff,
went and saw poor Hard. He is a kind of leper and the doctors
say five or six years of a cold climate might restore him to health
and I should think any sacrifice would be worth making for this.
It is dreadful to think that a young active hard-working officer
should have to endure such slights and misery as he must have.
Fortunately a sister is coming to live with him. He said he would like
a transfer to Bankipur but I dared not encourage the idea.

While Henry practised the arts of chaperonage at Bankipur,
Annette at Mussoorie had a much quieter time than three years
before at Shillong. There were, no doubt, tea-parties and
badminton and fancy dress balls, but she made no mention of
such gaieties in her chronicle to Henry. She hired a dandy, and
the four dandy-wallahs became so many slaves (idle ones)
added to Tutu’s and Sirdar’s retinue. She discovered an excellent
chemist’s shop, but one needed to be made of gold to deal with
it: “However you and I -would coin ourselves for Tutu, so I buy
whatever is needful.” She had friends and went expeditions: on
one of these, as had been recorded, she fell among leeches; on
another, passing a cemetery and recalling Henry’s fondness for
such places, she turned in, and the rows of baby tombs sent a
terror to her heart. She took up writing and produced an article
about Rural Life in Behar which Henry pronounced excellent,
though he thought that she had made a mistake in her botany
about borage; she did not think so.

One reason for Annette’s quieter life at Mussoorie than at
Shillong was that she was three years further on the road to
deafness; society without Henry had become less easy. But the
main reason lay in her pursuit of health. She had gone to
Mussoorie in order to bring her youngest child round from
dangerous weakness. She had gone to build up her owm strength.
In these main purposes she succeeded. The letters at the end of
her time in the hills are full of her references to Tutu’s roses and
Henry’s anxious enquiries after her own.

Bankipur, 29/9/82.

I am glad that you seem better. You must have a colour in
your cheeks though or I will send you back again. I am glad that you
are stouter. Were you to become Mrs. Masters and Mrs. Havelock

217

WHIST/}

India Called Them

ffed Jiiio one I would not divorce you. Rather I would say a!
reported to say regarding the growing embonpoint of
£t you are more delicious than ever. . . .

We discussed the existence of God at dinner, and after dinner, as
Dyson, Collinson and I walked home in the moonlight, we discussed
the nature of love. Dyson was all for unselfish love and said Sydney
Carton in the Tale of Two Cities was his hero. Collinson confessed
to having wept over the Mill on the Floss.

Annette liked station gossip and to know the results of Henry’s
researches into Fraulein’s past. But she was even more interested
in her elder children. She pined for them and suggested having
them up to Mussoorie.

Mussoorie, 20/9/82.

A week ago I felt well and walked long distances—now I cannot
persuade myself to walk and I dislike the sight of food. I believe it
will be right for me to stay here during October and as long as you
can spare into November. This would make it still seven weeks that
I cannot see my darlings. Sometimes I am tempted to ask for them.
The journey is very easy and I would move into a Bandour house
with them. Am I very weak? Dear! six weeks is a long time added
to six weeks already gone. You would be left alone only a short
time. . . .

Forgive me, dear, if you are vexed with me. I do not see any prin- "
ciple of fighting with my wish to see them. I do not think I am doing
wrong, though perhaps I am weak.

. . . I think you ll send me a telegram . If you say the bairns are not
to leave home I will not repine at your decision. . . .

Henry did not grant Annette’s plea to see the elder children
in Mussoorie, but he kept her in news of them. He told her how
five-year-old Letty, on a journey passing a large green island on
a river, had demanded to have it as a present; how three-year-old
Bhaia had expressed his dislike of kisses, but had made exceptions
in favour of his father’s and his mother’s. He reported many
other items about the two:

Bhaia knows a whole roomful of English words he says, but only
a little Deutsch. He can write but badly, he says. He hopes his mother
will come soon.

Do not fret about Letty and Bhaia. They are exceedingly well;
everybody says that Letty ? s manners are so much improved. She does

218 A

The Family Has a Home

eal or bite and when people speak to her she answers
really often very sweet. Bhaia is jolly but somewhat stolid
t is 9 a.m. and the children are just coming in from under the big
tree. It is cool or at least so cloudy now that they can sit till late. ...

Letty says I want to go to Mussoorie, I want to go to England.
Take the naughty sun away, send it to another country, I don’t like it.

Bhaia is busy just now under the table tying up Quiz. He tried
Pussy but she scratched him and so Bhaia has turned his attention to
the dog.

The contrast between the vivid, quick and tempestuous elder
daughter and somewhat stolid Bhaia, going his own way, cutting
papers, hopping about, and digging in the garden, is a recurrent
theme in Henry’s reports on the children.

Letty has become a quite well-behaved child. . . . Bhaia is
Launce’s dog Crab for unimpressionability, and is naughty only at
breakfast, when too he at once is brought to order by Ramyad’s being
called in to remove him.

Letty may hold her own in an age of negations but what will the
poor gentle Bhaia do ? He will float down the stream and perhaps go
over the cataracts unless some kind fairy pluck him aside. I have great
faith in that. Hylas will always find a nymph.

In saying these tilings to Annette about his son, Henry, no
doubt, was presciently building barriers against her danger of
son worship. In practical tenderness to every one of his children
equally he never failed for a moment.

Bhaia will not be the comet of a season but he will be a pleasant
thought and perhaps a shelter in a weary land. He is so happy that
one need have no compunction for having brought him into the
world. . . .

Henry and Annette were interested in books and in people,
in their work and in their children. But their strongest interest
then and always was in one another. “I do so long for the time,”
wrote Heniy to Mussoorie, “when I shall once again hold you
in my arms and tell you how much I love you. As Lady Rachel
Russell says in the most touching part of her letters, I want him
(her) to talk with, to walk with, to eat and sleep with.” “Love,”
wrote Annette to Bankipur,“is a marvellous fact and no one has
explained what it is.”

219

misT/tf,

India Called Them

sunshine and sleep and others of the great pleasures it is
__ common. There must be some strong attraction i.e. not only an
imaginative one to make us yearn across such great spaces of the earth
to those we love. I am constantly in spirit with you and I see you as
I so often have, in your office, and at table and in your early morning’s
last sleep—and I feel that it is inexplicable that you are so far. Dear!
I see you write your letters to me! I know sometimes in them when
you have laid your pen down to think a moment of me or of something
} our words have brought to mind. You don’t know how I know you,
how I love you—nor how I crave to make you talk to me—to turn
out of your thoughts opinions on many subjects and to know you
still better than I do. There are great unexplored regions in your
thoughts that I want to traverse. When we go on furlough there will
be time and repose and we can talk.

Though, in order to marry Henry before the Registrar,
Annette had submitted to declaring herself not a Christian, she
never ceased to hanker after some form of religious belief for
herself and some training in worship for her children. Henry stuck
to the Stoics and agnosticism for himself. But he agreed that the
teaching of the children was Annette’s sphere. “In the holidays
I will -talk to you about religion if I can. I have no wish to
prevent you from teaching Letty what you think proper.”
Annette was always wishing to make Henry feel as she did.

Mussoorie, 22-24/9/82.

I admire the Stoics too but I think there is more outside them than
in their philosophy. I do believe in a great unknown which through
us makes for righteousness—and back to which returns at death the
force or soul which is in us and which does not disclose itself to
scientific analysis. I do not care what it is called —I can call it God
and I could, if you let me, teach our children to pray—to lay open their
hearts for moral strength—to such a God. We must think dearest of
what you would like me to do! I cannot imagine that reverence and
aspiration for goodness can be so well taught to a young child without
some Theistic teaching. I think we are too ready, fearing to be untrue,
to shut our eyes to the spiritual facts of our nature, our aspirations
and religious feelings, but they are there as real as the material facts.

Goodbye my darling—don’t put all I have said away from you as
old beliefs stretched to new facts. I don’t think it is, but my words
are few and poor.

... I have dreamed about you this morning—I saw you come

220

The Family Has a Home

efdrawingroom and give me your little salaam of return
^^thef^ople are present—and I heard your laugh and I saw yo
^u^5ffthe sofa to meet me. I have dozed away half a day!

You will tell me if you think I may leave this before the 13th. I
shall not go to Delhi and get Tutu’s roses rubbed off. . . .

The greatest luxury for each of these two people was to roll
out his or her mind to the other. Saturday, with Sunday to
follow, was for Henry a common occasion for this.

Bankipur, Saturday evening.

I have just been examining your photograph. It does not do you
justice. Your eyes do not come out and you look sad and weary. I
must have you done again, say with Tutu in your arms.

If I had not married you, do you think you would have had a more
brilliant career? You would have written more and read more and
you might have married a man teres totus et rotundus. If I have
checked your development I trust that you will forgive me in con¬
sideration of the three children. I know perhaps that the noblest ideal
for me might have been not to marry at all, but my Darling I had not
strength for that and if you had not married me I should have gone
all adrift. Celibacy is for angels, says Robertson in one of his sermons.
It is not a state that would have been profitable to me and I am
conscious of a thousand sympathies that I had not as a bachelor. Mr.
Gilman would have been a happier and a better man if he had married
again and to come nearer home perhaps Mr. Peacock would have been
betterto havemarried than to have spent his time flirting witliMrs.Inglis.

If we leave India for good I want to take you to Barisal to see
Jeannie’s tomb. Sometimes I almost forget-at times that that tomb
contains a child as well as a wife. The little thing was buried in the
garden at first but when the mother died it was taken up and laid in
the same coffin. Page tells me that the grave is in good order and that
Mr. Brown looks after it.

The roses in the garden are coming out. . . . Am I a good judge,
I often wonder? I think I do good here, but what is the real fact?

Annette’s answer written three days later covered innumerable
pages.

12th Sep. 1882.

My dearest Henry,

I rose very late today for Tutu woke me so thoroughly in the
night that I lay thinking for some hours and slept till nearly eight.
My first sight was of Bogmonia w'ith a large bundle of letters in her

221

India Called Them

^ery welcome as none came yesterday and all the more wl
leir contents.

3 o not think you would have attained a higher ideal if you had
not married again. You have too great a capacity for loving to have
lived alone, and however cherished and tenderly kept in memory I
cannot believe that a love of such short enjoyment as yours and
Jeannie’s could have filled your life. If you feel as I do, it is the last year
which makes the closest bonds between husband and wife. Why
should you so separate Jeannie and me? We are inseparably bound
by you and at least, if different in other qualities, we both loved you.

It always grieves and a little hurts me to hear celibacy praised at
the expense of married life. I could easily, being a woman, have lived
unmarried; I have lived long enough and passed by sufficient oppor¬
tunities of marriage to assert this but I do not feel that I am a worse
woman for being a wife.

I came across a passage from Lecky’s morals last night which,
mutatis mutandis, gives the spirit of what I feel about the redeeming
of the passion which celibates reprobate. It says that the Bona Dea is
tlie ideal wife “who never looked in the face or had known the name
of any man but her husband.” It seems to me—an old married woman
you know dear—that too much is made of the sinfulness of this
passion. I am very ignorant no doubt but it just seems to me that it is
a natural craving like hunger or thirst and like hunger should be
neither stimulated by “zests” nor unduly indulged. If one thinks of
it as a simple animal need it seems to become a very common-place
matter. It is when by repression or license it poisons die imagination
that it is a sin and a curse. I do not think women can judge sufficiently
well in this matter to condemn men for yielding to this passion more
easily than they do— because I believe that diey have not physically
the same temptations and this perhaps accounts for my being unable
to conceive any pleasure derivable from it except in the strict limitation
of a marriage for love. So dearest husband I do not like to hear you
regret that you could not live alone. Surely nothing is more dear or
even sacred to us than our marriage.

All this does not prevent me from reverencing the man who from
good reasons leads a celibate life — but I do not include the living
celibate amongst those good reasons. I am a little disturbed at writing
all this to you. Perhaps I should not! Tell me if I am wrong.

You ask if I should not have made a more brilliant career if I had
not married you ? I might have made my name known in a larger or
smaller circle as health and industry would have allowed and if I
could have recovered from the semi-suicide which I in ignorance and

222

misr/f

The Family Has a Home

fem was committing in Calcutta. But what would that
_ ^.Vthe world or me? I have never desired to live alone. It tl
" ack to the days of my most unselfish enthusiasm to write like
this—days in which like Dorothea I longed to widen the skirts of
light and in which I floated as it were in a tide of sympathy with those
for whom I worked. Those were days when, teaching commonplace
grammar to tliirty girls, I felt that they and I were an entity—to
rise together—when each dryest rule became to me instinct with
life because by the true and clear teaching of it I hoped to work a
moral good. Then came my ignorant venture to India and the mad
notion that I could work with and for Indian women as I had for
English girls, and by looking back I now know that I was wrong to
leave my place in London, for I believe that I could have done better
Tfvork there than I did here and should probably have avoided the I
think too heavy strain of my deafness and ill health. I know that
when I had my ears I had a power over people whom I desired to
influence for good.

But all that is far away! and unregretted! For if then I might have
drawn a few souls with me nearer to the light and have cheered a few
hard workers with fellowship and sympathy, now I am firmly welded
into the great chain of life, I have done my part in lengthening that
chain. I no longer am in the foreground of the battle, for my children
are there—still in our shadow and dependent upon our efforts to help
them to grow so as to form their link in the great chain. I am content.
—absolutely content to live in them if we can so rear thepi that they
shall arise to higher things upon me as a stepping-stone. I'don’t think
of you as only a stepping-stone.

For you and me my dear husband, what can I say? I have no
higher desire than to be loved by you, to make you happy and to
see you honourable and honoured. I will not say more to you than
that every year binds me more closely and inextricably to you. *

Do not however suppose that I regard our family life as being
what it ought to be. I am sure it is capable of great improvement. In
the first place I am convinced that if as I suppose we return to India,
we must concede so much to lessened strength as to secure more
repose and annual change of air. We must lay ourselves out to live
and not only to be alive; we must try to be so free from physical
weakness that our judgement and temper shall be calmer. (I am not
giving covert stabs—only speaking of us both as one.)

I am quite sure also that we ought to use our Sundays better—we
ought to secure some repose of feeling and some means of re-creating
our good intentions and aims—-which are apt to get worn off by daily

223

India Called Them

><§l

.do not wish to fashion anything like a new creed but V
e should devote a part of our Sunday to reading together some-
ihg which we feel lifts us out of our daily cares and which being
read and commented on together united us in our aim at good living.

I know you have your levee and I grudge the strength it takes out
of you and from our family day. This has long been my thought and
my wish is that we devote part of Sunday to ourselves—to you and
me. We live too much from hand to mouth—a consequence chiefly of
diminished energy and I cannot when you ask me about leaving India
and question 'whether you are a good Judge and so on, resist the
conclusion that you would be a better Judge and I a better Judge’s
wife if we created together a fund of more earnest thought and more
refreshing feeling out of the great world of thought which lives in
good books. It is not information I want to get; it is discipline and
strength to serve as our arm against vexation and cares.

I have endless talk for you! Are you tired? I will not write to¬
morrow and then too you will perhaps read my letter twice. I do
above all things desire that when we go on furlough you let your
mind lie fallow, ppen to the airs of Heaven and do not cramp it up
in any Indian waterway. It is too fresh and full of sap (if not screwed
into a dry compendium) for the perpetual dustiness you subject it to.
There !

“And day by day the Severn fills
The salt sea water passes by
And hushes half jhe babbling Wye
And makes a silence in the hills.”

That is not verbatim correct but it is near enough— the babbling
Wye in you is too dear to me for me to see it swamped by routine
and narrow dicughts, and the thoughts from the mountain too valuable
to be unuttered because they are silenced by the daily salt tide of
Indian duties and interest. Stand back for a few mondis and let your
modier country take her place and cut down die jungle of all these
hardworking years which must impede your true view even of India.

I have written you a volume— but it is as nothing to what I could
have written. Please read it twice and be as you are always inclined
to be tender and comprehending. You do not do my boy justice.
He makes no noise but he has no lack of strength of mind. I am looking
for news of your decision to come.

Kiss the darlings and tell Letty that Tutu came in today and asked
“Letty accha hai?”

224

Your loving wife,

A. S. Beveridge.

misr/f

The Family Has a Home

interchange is typical—Henry starting one hare a:
er, Annette dutifully chasing each of them to its doom,
taking Henry’s happy and unhappy thoughts alike more gravely
than he did himself, ending up with what was undoubtedly
sound advice—to stand back ~a little from the Indian treadmill.
Rudyard Kipling was saying much the same diing at the same
time.

Now India is a place beyond all other where one must not
take things too seriously—the midday sun always excepted.
Too much work and too much energy kill a man just as effectively
as too much assorted vice or too much drink. Flirtation does not
matter, because everyone is being transferred, and either you or
she leave the station and never return. Good work does not matter,
because a man is judged by his worst output, and another man
takes all the credit of the work as a rule. Bad work does not
matter, because other men do worse, and incompetents hang on
longer in India than anywhere else. Amusements do not matter,
because you must repeat them as soon as you have accomplished
them once, and most amusements only mean trying to win
another person’s money. Sickness does not matter, because it is
all in die day’s work, and if you die, another man takes over
your place and your office in the eight hours between death and
burial. Nothing matters except home-furlough and acting allow¬
ances, and these only because they are scarce. It is a slack country,
where all men work with imperfect instruments; and the wisest
thing is to escape as soon as ever you can to some place where
amusement is amusement and a reputation worth the having. 1

This was the year of a great comet. Looking at it and rousing
others to look allowed Henry to enjoy to the full his passion
for unusual hours:

Wednesday 4 a.m., 4/10/82.

The Comet is very beautiful just now. It is standing over die trees
at our eastern gate like the flaming sword of the Angel who guarded
Paradise when man was driven out of it. I have not a Milton here but
I daresay he might furnish a quotation in this place.

The tail of the Comet is forked and like a swallow’s tail. Shall we
say it is a burning feather floated into space from the body of the
phoenix? There is no moon and this makes the Comet and all the

1 krom “Thrown Away*’ in Plain Tales from the Hills , published originally in the
Civil and Military Gazette,

India Called Them

pst so bright just now. I awoke Fraulein and Letty and
min. The former stood on their vantage ground at
r upstairs. And Miss Ellen Cummin responded to my invitation
to “Come into the Garden” and stood near the large grass plot with
her back hair comet wise streaming behind her. I called from the
garden to Letty and she answered: “It is wunderschon.” “Has the
Bhaia seen it?” “Yes,” they answered. “What does he think of it?”
“Bhaia philosophiert,” answers Fraulein. . . .

Annette had to confess, in answer to this, that she had not
seen the comet, but an eleventh-hour postponement of her
return enabled her to put this right.

Mussoorie, 11/10/82.

This is my last letter. I am so glad a new'girls* school is to be built
and that you are having something to do with it.

Your telegram came this morning. You are never tired of showing
how you think of me. I think you are glad I am coming. I shall look
for die comet on my way. It is most reprehensible of me not to have
seen it.

It is a great pleasure that you like my article but where have I said
anything about borage? . . .

... I am horrified to see my money running away in torrents. I
shall persuade you to look at my account and see what I have done
with it. I have very little more than enough to come home with and
have not paid my doctor. I suppose I shall be forgiven! for this and
for everything else I have ever done which you did not like—I hope.

. . . My love, dearest husband, I almost tremble lest anything should

happen to prevent us from meeting. I feel like a child looking at a
butterfly on a flower just ready to grasp the lovely creature but
breathless lest it should escape him even when it seems so near. The
butterfly is my happiness in our re-union.

12/10/82.

Alas! the butterfly escapes me.

I am sure that you will approve of my delaying my journey, rather
than of risking anydiing for Tutu. I told you some days ago that she
was not well. [There follows a sickroom account of dysentery and
treatment] ... all signs of dysentery have disappeared. I do not
however like to move her ... so have decided to remain till
Monday when daks will be more easy to get and she will have
recovered, I hope.

... I saw the comet today and think it “tres gentil” and not in

226

The Family Has a Home

like a portent or a fiery flag in the sky. It was 5-30 a.m
touch of dawn was in the sky, and all was lovely.

13/10/82.

I hope to leave on Monday at about eight in the morning before
the rocks become hot. The road isyery hot in the afternoon as the
inner side is like a radiating machine.

. . . Goodbye my darling. Some day I shall come.

14/10/82.

Tutu is quite well again and is full of going to Patna. . . . Tutu
is anxious to help me to write and as I do not allow it she has gone
away in dudgeon and has put herself in a comer. I think she does not
regard it as a place of punishment but as a place to manifest indignation.

At last, on October 18th, Annette, her child and her retinue
got home. She took up at once her social round—including
preparations for die Lieutenant-Governor’s visit early in
November and the entertainment of various visiting Commis¬
sioners. She returned to witness the breaking of a political storm
that was destined to darken her sky and Henry’s. This was
die controversy occasioned by the so-called Ilbert Bill intro¬
duced early in 1883. I n the words of two recent historians of
India, this Bill “which took its popular name from the legal
member in charge of it, though not its author, was a modest
measure designed to remove an administrative anomaly. We
have seen that Indians were first employed as magistrates merely
to re ieve over-worked Englishmen of the less important cases,
ana at irst there was neidier need nor demand for giving them
power to try Englishmen, whose cases were heard only by
nglish magistrates specially empowered for die purpose. By
about 1880, however, Indians who had entered the Civil Service
were becoming senior enough to be appointed District Magis¬
trates, and it was an obvious anomaly that under the existing law
the chief authority in a district could not dispose of cases which
might be within the competence of one of his subordinates. The
Bill designed to remove this anomaly met with furious opposition
from the unofficial English element in Bengal and Bihar, mainly
the growers of tea and indigo, who, living in districts remote
from the capital, objected to be pla ? J in die power of an Indian
magistrate; and their attitude had the support of many local

227

MIN/Sr^

India Called Them

'AL headed by the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal,
hty was based directly on racial grounds. . .

Henry supported the Bill and was thus in the opposite camp
to his Lieutenant-Governor (Sir Rivers Thompson). Annette
publicly opposed the Bill, but not on racial grounds. She wrote
a letter to The Englishman .

3/3/83-

I am not afraid to assert that I speak the feeling of all English¬
women in India when I say that we regard the proposal to subject
us to the jurisdiction of native Judges as an insult.

It is not pride ot race which dictates this feeling, which is the
outcome of something far deeper—it is the pride of womanhood.
This is a form of respect which we are not ready to abrogate in
order to give such advantages to others as are offered by Mr.
Ubert’s Bill to its beneficiaries.

In this discussion as in most “il y a question de femmes ,, —
and in this discussion the ignorant and neglected women of
India rise up from their enslavement in evidence against their
masters. They testify to die justice of the resentment which
Englishmen feel at Mr. Ilbert *s proposal to subject civilised women
to the jurisdiction of men who have done little or nothing to
redeem the women of dieir own races, and whose social ideas
are still on the outer verge of civilisation.

In this letter, Annette’s feelings about the defeat of her first
mission to Indian women came to the surface. Her writing of
the letter and public opposition , to Henry did not in the least
disturb dieir relation. It was the essence of their contract diat
each partner had the absolute unfettered right and duty of
expression in private and in public of any honestly held opinion.
Annette’s letter—and there were some things in it even stronger
than what is printed above — was defended to critics in England
by Henry who disagreed with it, as a fair and temperate expression
of a view which Annette had full right to hold.

The Ilbert Bill controversy could not scratch die diamond of
Henry and Annette’s love. But it did embitter racial relations in
India, and thus made hard and solitary for the future the position
of men like Henry. As the historians already quoted observe, die
hostility of those who opposed the Ilbert Bill on racial grounds

s W. H. Moreland and Atul Chandra Chatterjee: A Short Hist jry of India^ p. 434
(Longmans Green, 1936).

228

MIN/Sr^

The Family Has a Home

:pressed in terms which far exceeded the usual lir
06 al controversy; a section of the Indian Press naturally
replied in kind; and the racial issue was fairly joined. A com¬
promise was eventually arranged, but much mischief had been
done, and throughout a large part of India a definite tendency
towards estrangement had come into existence. ... As tire
century drew to its end, racial estrangement became manifest in
the sphere of social relations.”

So Henry who had always felt the injustice of England’s
domination of India, so Annette whose first friends and hosts in
Calcutta had been Mr. and Mrs. Monmohan Ghose, so Henry
and Annette with their “International Parties” found themselves
widi the tide running against them.

22C)

A.t times when I sit in the garden in the cool of the evening
I feel as if I never could go home. India has burnt itself
into me.

Henry from Bankipur to Annette in Mussoorie,
October 6 , 1882.

But the children must , 1 think ., go home or to the hills.
I will not bear to look on their pallid faces another hot
season. Alas! how many poor Europeans must bear to do
this and see their children pining.

Henry from Bankipur to Annette in Mussoorie,
October 11, 1882.

How happy we were at Keavil.

Henry from Calcutta to Annette in Darjeeling,

May 6, 1888.

MINISr^

Judge s House at Bankipur

misT#

Scottish Interlude

! I think you are too close to it to be able to see all ro
administration and you lack High Court experience.

_> should not like to diminish the quantity of temperate air due

to us by staying here where the foreign nature of the place is sufficiently
attested by the leeches which sit in waiting even on my doorsteps.

I long oh! how I long to go and see the source of the Ganges.
Does it present itself in the light of a pilgrimage due to the country?
It does to me.

The fifth child deprecated by Annette was Henry’s projected
book on The Administration of Justice in Bengal. The four
existing children were The District of Bakarganj (1876), Letty
(1877), Willy (1879), anc * Tutu (1880). The projected work on
the Administration of Justice in Bengal was reduced to two
articles published in the Calcutta Review. Henry’s next actual
book was The Trial ofNatida Kumar , published in 1886.

Henry’s anxious questionings as between furlough and retire¬
ment continued.

Bankipur, 9/9/82.

I am very busy as usual. Yes you will come down on or about
15th October. We will take furlough I think in March. Shall we
retire? Certainly if pleasure only be looked to. But what would be
best for India and for you and the children ? I can stay out here and
economise. Could I make myself known at home ? Unless one can
get a hearing knowledge and ability are of no use. I should not like
to settle down into a Whister or a mere paterfamilias.

Bankipur, 29/9/82.

We shall see about furlough when you come down. You and the
children must go, and I do not see why I should stay. Appellate
Benches may go hang for all I care. But I cannot give up India for
good. I am transplanted rice and should like to be harvested in the
swamps. . . .

Bankipur, 4/10/82.

The morning is breaking and the garden is glimmering in the dew.

Can I really leave all this and go home. Certainly not if Appellate
Benches come. If I had a third subordinate Judge, work would be
much lighter and I would not be oppressed.

But the children must I think go home or to the hills. I will not
bear to look on their pallid faces another season. Alas how many poor
Europeans must bear to do this and see their children pining.

233

India Called Them

<5 ,/■

igL

M ttn *$Jre Miss Cummins have gone off to Arrah and I am all alone to¬
-night. In eight days more I will have you by my side and then how
happy we shall be. At times when I sit in the garden in the cool of
the evening and look at the beautiful crotons and away out to the
blithe Deana I feel as if I never could go home. India has burnt
itself into me and I dread the cold and wet country of my birth. The
work too when not too hard is so interesting that I feel as if I could
not quit it. Perhaps with a refuge in the hills we need not go home.

There was never any real doubt as to what Henry would do.
He would take Annette and the children home on furlough,
meaning to return, and he would return soon rather than late.
India was in his bones.

So in the first months of 1883, while the Ilbert Bill storm was
rising, Annette, with her domestic army, carried through her
second major task of packing up, storing, selling; there were
several more such tasks to come in her time in India. She and
Henry paid a round of farewell visits. She fired her broadside at
the Ilbert Bill in the Englishman .

At last, with the three children — Letty rising 6, Willy 4 plus,
Tutu nearing 3 —they sailed from Calcutta in April 1883 and
reached Gravesend in the middle of May; they were accom¬
panied by the Bankipur Fraulein Gause and by a young Bengali,
Kumad, entrusted to Henry’s care. Henry, taking the eldest
child Letty with him, went almost at once to Scotland to
see his mother, brother and sisters at St. Mungo’s Cottage,
Culross, and to look for a furnished house nearby where his
furlough might be spent. Annette, with the younger children,
stayed in London, in hotel and lodgings, to wait upon dentist
and aurist. She found London less attractive than did her children.
This was their first experience of England.

On the first day of all “Letty and Willy lay down on their
faces in Charing Cross Station to look down a grating.” Willy
and Tutu were taken on the underground—then fairly new but
not electrified—and found it enchanting. Not so did Annette find
it in her endeavours to arrive at Notting Hill Gate by a route

of Henry’s choosing.

Obedient to your orders I conquered the temptation of the
omnibus and wended my way to the subterranean regions. There I

234

MiNisr^

Scottish Interlude

id coughed till I found myself in the free air at Latimer !!£oJ
uneasy sense of error came over me. I inquired for Notting
Hill Gate. The stout porter swept half the horizon with his extended
arm and took me from the train. I disconsolately crossed the line to
return, as I soon found, on my train wheels (local colour of footsteps).
I looked in vain for any class of carriage but a third, so I deposited
my troubles among the people and conversed with a very decent and
forlorn woman about my whereabouts.

Arrived at Notting Hill I rebelled at being taken back to Edgware
Road and got out to take a cab. But the British public is not allowed
to do as it likes. I was told I could not go out of the station. Fate
seemed to doom me to waiting for another train and to breathing
again the lower air. After some discussion with a juvenile official, the
pleasing news was conveyed to me that for a consideration I would
be allowed to leave the station. The said consideration amounting
only to threepence and a long waiting for a receipt, I availed myself
of the mercies of the Company and, a free woman, took a cab in
Notting Hill and returned to the bosom of my family.

See now the interesting consequences of wifely obedience. You
may say that you did not tell me to go to Latimer Road, but you will
admit diat I should not have gone there, had you not told me to go
by Underground.

Henry’s answering comment came by return of post and was
slightly unfeeling.

30/5/83*

I am very sorry for your mishaps by the Underground, but they
only prove that you should have begun earlier to use the line.

His account of the household at St. Mungo’s was mixed.
Mamma, at 88, was “very helpless now as regards walking . . .
but comfortable and as happy as so old a person can be.”

Phemie does nothing except amuse herself and feed her birds.
David is a dreadful talker and lets nobody else speak but he reads to
his mother and is as simple and amiable as ever. ... He is a town
councillor; he bought an empty house for which he pays 20/- a year
and this enables him to have a vote for the member etc. . . . On the
whole the borough seem to be proud of him. ... He hunts
occasionally.

The mainstay of St. Mungo’s was Maggie, widowed less than
two years before by the death of Stephen Bell of Eyemouth and

2 35

India Called Them

ime to take charge of “two helpless women and a mo
“She is the mast of the ship and were she to retire
►ment the sails would flop miserably on deck/’ Maggie, “a
noble woman, 55 was and remained Henry’s favourite sister and
later established warm friendship with Annette and the children.
But at this stage she was very much of a widow; not unreasonably
Henry found her renunciation of all happiness and her desire for
the grave a little depressing. And he was not prepared to leave
Letty even for a week in Maggie’s charge. “Maggie wants to make
a Christian of her and I objected. 55

But though St. Mungo’s appeared to Henry “too much of a
hospital for decayed ladies and gentlemen,” it was at least a
hospital sufficiently endowed for its modest needs. Henry sent to
Annette a tabular statement of the “house income” totalling
£380 a year; this included a remittance of £60 from Allie and
( not including the £5 to David)” from Henry himself.
V irh this and some occasional royalties on coal, Mamma had
even been able to deposit nearly £400 in the bank.

Whatever Henry might say to Annette about his relations at
St. Mungo’s did not affect his and her determination to settle as
near as possible to them for his furlough. Only one suitable house
presented itself and that cost more than they wanted to afford.
fBut Keavil was a very attractive house with charming grounds,
ii miles from Dunfermline, within easy reach of all Henry’s
relations, and with room for the active hospitality which both
of them enjoyed. So Henry took Keavil; there for nearly a year
the family were together; they filled it with friends and relations.
Annette’s sister Fanny v/ith her husband James, two boys and a
nurse were diere for six months; they even brought for a fort¬
night old Mrs. Mowatt, James’s mother. Henry’s Indian protege
Kumad was there for nearly two months. David was there
several times; on one occasion at least, through falling off a
horse, he overstayed his welcome. Maggie, Allie’s wife Libbie,
and other Beveridges came, of course. So did Annette’s old
friends the Turners of Stockport, who were to be so important
to her children later. There was added to the household too at
tins time another indispensable member. On June 25th Annette
noted in her diary, “Fraulein Emma Vogel entered our employ
as nursery governess at £23 per annum.” This was tire aller-

236

miST/fy

Scottish Interlude

Frdulein from Halle-an-der-Saale to whose teaft
:e’s son, more than sixty years after, attributed his ability -
talk German.

The real point of Keavil was that Henry was there practically
all the time with Annette and the children. It was a continuation
for a year of the home that they had together for three years at
Bankipur, a home in a healthier climate, physically and mentally.
Annette regarded it as a means of weaning the children from
India. It was also a grand opportunity of studying them and of
recording them. Towards die end of the time in Keavil, in March
1884, she wrote a 2,000-word memorandum about diem.

They have all much improved in healdi since coming to
Scotland and appear to have left India out of their scheme of life.
They never use a Hindustani word and show a curious trace of
irritation if any such are used to diem. . . .

Letty is now six years and eight months old. Slender and tall
she promises by her loose build and long limbs to resemble the
Beveridge family and her fadier in figure. Her hair is of die
colour of a chestnut husk. She is an excellent walker and acdve
in movement. She is bookish already—taking to books as indeed
does Willy in his younger measure as ducks to water. . .
She now rarely shows the irritability of temper which perplexed
us so much in India. She retains die sensitiveness wliich marked
her always to sad impressions. . . . Quite lately I read a little
poem to her of the death of a collier’s boy—a simple pathetic
poem—she cried most naturally and was long to comfort.
Afterwards she read it to herself and told me it did not seem so
sad. “Why not?” I asked. “Because I cannot read it so well,” she
answered.

Up to this time she has had a number of books read to her of
which I remember the following. *Masterman Ready (two or
diree times), Crofton Boys (twice), Feats on the Fiord, *Early
Lessons, Little Arthur’s History (twice), * 01 d Deccan Days
(many many times) and other fairy stories. . . .-Many
children’s German books have been read by her. Willie has had
several of die above books read to him but he does not yet
follow the English sufficiently well for him to read with Letty.
(*=Willie’s readings).

Letty likes to hear and to read poetry. Just now' Young
Lochinvar, Lord Ullin’s daughter, The Blind Boy, and
“Original Poems” are her favourites. On the 8th of this month

237

India Called Them

children listened with attention to their Papa*s readin]
dent Mariner.” Tutu liked the sound, Willie found tb
atross in Wood’s Natural History and was with Letty much
interested in the poeim

She is very loving to me and helpful to me in my deafness.
Like her father she seems always to have one ear open for me. . . .
She has many ways like her father. It was amusing that one day
he commented to me on a curious little mannerism of Letty’s—
a rolling up of her eyes into their comer when shy or commoved.
I was able to show him in it his own identical gesture.

Willie was five years old on the 6th of tills month. He is slim
and compact and tall—has very fair hair and loving large blue
eyes. ... He spends much play-time in writing series of
arithmetical and multiplication statements very neatly. . . .
One of the distinct traits in Willie’s character is his accuracy of
statement. He speaks deliberately and requires it in others. One
critical ear is always open for Tutu’s correction. He allows no
lapses into mistake. ... I w r as one day in the twilight reading
a message from Fraulein to the effect that she could not find
Vv illie’s Hosentrager. I did not know the word and did not
pronounce the modification. “Trager” Mamma, came the
correction from the little son of 4§ years. He is not dictatorial in
his corrections but aggrieved as one who has the right to defend.

When we come to my Tutu not much can be said as to
acquirements, for she is 3^ years old. Her hair is curly, a delicate
piquant little face, her figure rotund. . . . For about twenty
minutes daily she does lessons, and has perused with much
assistance from a forefinger two pages of a German reading
book. . . . She has given up the stately dance in which she
ured to don a sari and move slowly before my bedroom fire in
Bankipur to the music of Bogmonia’s song. She now dances jigs
with immense energy.

1 he children and Henry held the centre of the stage at Keavih
The stay there gave plenty of opportunity of showing off the
children to relations, and particularly to Jemima, their grannie,
in her 88th year; during this stay, Jemima’s home at St. Mungo’s,
Culross, was given up for another house called Durham, Torry-
burn, but each was equally within reach. The stay in Scotland
gave Henry the chance of seeing all his kin; he escorted David
to be made an elder of Culross; he went for a walking tour with
Allie to Glencoe; he v ent to the funeral of his cousin Louisa at

238

Scottish Interlude

§L

Lr gh- And he insisted on buying a waggonette; this
:travagance which Annette always remembered against him.
Keavil was more than she thought they ought to afford, but it
was worth the cost.

Annette’s sister Fanny and her family came not as guests but
to share expenses. This part of the furlough plan did not work
out well, as Fanny’s two boys both got scarlet fever and for
some time had to be isolated. Nor did it prove easy for the two
families to live together. When after nearly six months Fanny
and all her party left, Annette’s diary records: “We felt as if a
cord that had held us too tight had snapped.’’ There was trouble
still to come. On the last day of April, when Annette and her
family left beautiful Keavil, they met on the way in Dunfermline
letters from James and Fanny quarrelling about the expenses.
Winter succeeded summer in the family relations.

By that time Henry and Annette’s plans were cut and dried.
He had had enough holiday and did not take all the furlough he
could; he got permission to return to work in June; this meant
sailing in May and gratified his desire to travel to India at an
unusual time. The trio of children were to be left at a friend’s
school in England. Annette was to follow Henry to India in
the autumn. She had insured herself against the time when she
would have no care of children by getting the consent of Countess
of Noer to translate from German the Count’s History of the
Emperor Akhar .

The journey south was made on this occasion by steamer
from Granton to London. There followed die usual procedure
o staying in a hotel for a day or two and searching for lodgings.

ese were found in Brompton Square. There Annette established
herself and her brood till the time should come for them to part,
'•rom there at 7.40 a.m. on May 23rd she saw Henry off by train
at ictoria; for the sake of economy he was going to India by
the Rubattino Line from Genoa.

239

MIN/Sr*,,

1 feel like Mahomet's coffin suspended between my broken
family.

Annette from London to Henry in Calcutta,
October 5, 1884.

You know my darling you once solemnly adjured me not to
fail in my duty towards you but to let you know when
I thought you were wrong .

Henry in Suez Canal to Annette in London,

June 2, 1884.

Perhaps I know now about you severed things which you
would be surprised to learn , so do not make more con¬
fessions till we are together.

Annette from London to Henry in Calcutta,

June 23, 1884.

India is getting very unpleasant with the strife between
natives and Europeans.

Henry from Calcutta to Annette in London,

August 23, 1884.

Chapter XIII

THE FAMILY IS BROKEN

“'B” ~1T OW unhappy you looked that day when you saw me

|- 1 off at Victoria.” So Henry wrote later of the first time

JL JLin May 1884 when he and Annette were to be divided
with half the world between them. The separation was not for
long. Annette was planning to follow him in six months’ time.
But that would mean parting from die trio of children. They
were to stay behind in Southport, at a small private school called
Bingfield, kept by a family friend of die Unitarian connection
called Fanny Lewin. Henry and Annette had been over to see
the'school at Soudiport and Fanny Lewin had spent a week at
Keavil getting to know her charges; Annette left nothing to
chance. The trio would be in the special charge of Fraulein
Emma Vogel, engaged the previous year as nursery governess
and already established for all time in die family affections.
They would be within easy reach of the Turners, two of Annette’s
oldest and dearest friends; childless themselves, diese two were
adopted as Uncle Henry and Aunt Alice; widi them all holidays
could be spent. The plan for the children seemed a good one.

It was not due to be put in practice, however, till the autumn.
Meanwhile, Annette, with her retinue of die diree children and
Fraulein, wandered about from one set of lodgings to another;
often the retinue was increased by Kumad, Henry’s Indian boy
protege. For most of the time they had to be in London or
near it so that Annette might visit her nasal surgeon. Once or
twice they found lodgings afield—in Stratford and Malvern;
there they exercised their legs upon many hills.

The children were a delight, but they were also a grief. As
Annette confessed to her diary, she had at times bad attack? of
weakness about leaving them. She described herself as like
Mahomet’s coffin suspended between her broken family.

This first distant separation led, of course, to a great out¬
pouring of letters, beginning from Henry in Genoa where he
embarked, and continuing dally or twice daily all the way to
Bombay. Near the end of the voyage Henry wrote:

241

MIN/Sr^

India Called Them

pleased to think that I have got over so much of the voyage
without the help of cards or other games and without greatly missing
them. Writing to you has been a great pleasure and occupation. They
laugh at me for writing so much.

Annette decided at the beginning that the proper way to write
to Henry was in fragments every day, though the post would
go only weekly.

You will get anything new and I shall be spared the waiting a week
to talk to you.

Naturally in this first separation the two wrote about them¬
selves and one another and their relations. They plunged with
zest into a discussion of why sometimes they disagreed and what
they should do about it.

In the Canal, 2/6/84.

You asked me on the day I left you to forget that we had ever
disagreed. I am not sure however if that is possible or if it is the best
thing tor us to do. I rather think that we should dwell somewhat,
though not much, on our disagreements and consider why they
occurred and how they may be prevented in future.

Henry, with his love of teasing thoughts and of looking at the
other side of the stuff, wanted to examine disagreements. He
gave some advice to Annette which was obviously sound.

Dean Stanley remarked once that a person who did not hear well
got the advantage of concentration of thought from being less subject
to interruption but also incurred danger of forming opinions on
insufficient evidence. I think your deficient hearing is apt to strengthen
you unduly in your own opinion, because it may lead to your thinking
that those around you are more convinced by your argument than
they really are. It is difficult, my dear wife, to carry on a calm argument
with a person who does not hear well, for in talking the voice is raised
and the discussion is from physical causes apt to assume an angry
pitch.

Henry sweetened his pill with a characteristic bit of self-deprecia¬
tion, Not only deaf persons but all people of strong opinions
.ere apt to over-estimate the extent to which they convinced
their listeners.

242

MINISr^

The Family is Broken

j>wj from my own experience that I have often been shock*

' much less people agreed with me than I thought they
nes I have been tempted to accuse them of treachery or pre¬
varication for their expressing afterwards the very opposite of what
they had seemed to say. But I believe that in most cases the fact really
was that they never had agreed with me and that I had too readily
taken their silence or their apparent assent for a real one.

Having sweetened his pill Henry went on to administer it:

In the disagreeable letter which Fanny sent to you there was one
expression which struck me. She said you spoke as though you were
always in the right and never thought of the possibility of your being
at any time utterly in the wrong. The remark applies to her much
more than to you but it expresses a danger to which high and vehement
natures are always exposed. . . .

You know, my darling, you once solemnly adjured me not to fail
in my duty towards you but to let you know when I thought you
were wrong.

Henry’s citation of Annette’s sister Fanny in the letter from
the Canal was a shrewd blow, as he meant it to be. Henry had
a poor opinion of Fanny, as Annette knew. One of the recurrent
subjects of discussion between the two was as to the kind of
letter to write in answer to something unpleasant from Fanny.
On this Henry had defined his attitude early in the marriage when
suggesting that an answer which Annette had written should not
be sent at all.

29/9/78.

I do not think you can do Fanny any good by lecturing her. I fancy
you have done so more or less all your life but have you improved
her? ... It may be cowardice that prevents me from speaking to
people plainly but still I think that plain-speaking should not be
resorted to unless it is likely to do good. Fanny knows we don’t
approve of her style of writing and if she won’t listen to us and if
James is powerless or endures her letters what can we do ?

The letter from the Canal, by some accident, went to New York
and did not reach Annette for more than a month: with Henry’s
handwriting such accidents were not uncommon; on one
occasion luggage which he addressed to two of his children
who were staying at Carr Bridge in Inverness failed for some

243

India Called Them

to arrive there; enquiry revealed that the railway of
dU^ad Henry’s “Carr Bridge” as “Cambridge.”

Lnnette did not have to wait for the New York post to know
what Henry had said. According to custom, Henry followed his
letter of June 2nd which “might give pain” but which he felt
it his “duty to write,” by a love letter. “You know that I love
you and that I feel infinitely indebted to you for all your goodness
to me.” Annette was slighdy puzzled, but the letters which she
did receive at the time were enough to show her what was in the
letter that she did not see till later. And as usual she had her
answer. She was certain of her love and Henry’s. She thought diat
continuing to dwell on disagreements was “like squinting at a
smut on one’s face in place of looking at a pleasing landscape.”
And Henry, of course, agreed with this:

I think that we are both rather too critical and too much inclined to
take everything au serieux. It is right to be serious and to endeavour
to attach everything to fundamental principles, but this may sometimes
induce mistakes by making one break butterflies on wheels, in other
words attaching too much importance to things. Looking back to our
disagreements it seems that very few of them were about really
important matters.

Henry was never content with loving correction of Annette’s
faults. He was always ready to claim or admit faults of his own.
He made at this time a notable confession to Annette, led thereto
by a chance encounter on board.

One of Henry’s fellow-passengers was an English Colonel
who joined the ship at Naples. He brought with him, to see him
off, a lady whom Henry at first mistakenly took to be his wife
and later, perhaps as wrongly, took to be his light of love.

28/5/84.

The- English Colonel and his wife have turned out to be a dis¬
appointment. The Colonel is a ragged ruffianly looking man ... and
the wife tamed out to be an Italian neither fair nor honest.

4/6/84.

I confess that when I saw him—an Englishman and a man of fifty
coming on board with a bold proud Fiorantina, I felt disgusted. I
thought of our dear little Tutu and of how a man of his years “could
force from famine the caress of love” or have sunk to such bitter
waters for refreshment. But perhaps he was only philandering.

244

The Family is Broken

ly facts established against the Colonel were Aa
t the lady to luncheon to see him off and that therea
<Twrote to her in Italian interminable letters which, so Henry
said, consisted almost wholly of guide-book descriptions of the
scenery. Henry came later to admit that die Colonel was “a
better man than I thought,” though after thirty-six years in
India, “like most old Anglo-Indians rather cracked.”

But reflection on the supposed delinquencies of the Colonel
naturally turned Henry’s thoughts inward upon himself. The
day after the letter given above he wrote to'Annette.

5 June 1884. In the Red Sea.

My dearest,

I am going to make a bit of a confession to you. I think I ought
to do so for I cannot bear that you should think me better than I am.
I crave your love and hope that I may always have it but I would
like you to love me with all my faults and not in ignorance of them....

Iwas perfectly faithful to Jeannie and sol have been and trust always
shall be to you but before I knew either of you I was not virtuous.
I struggled with my passions and never set myself to do wickedness
but I was not pure and went wrong. . . .

Do not let me lose your love for thus speaking the truth. ... My
clear, I was no saint in my youth. I was keenly alive to beauty and to
the influence of women and the fact that I had never learned to dance
or otherwise make myself agreeable to women and that all mention of
beauty etc. was suppressed in our house only added fuel to the flame
which consumed me.

Shall I go further and tell you that I thought that the flame had
somewhat burnt out when I married you and that I was not conscious
o eing drawn to you by strong sexual ardour. Married to you,
}°l ever, I iound the flame revive and I have had exquisite pleasure
in holding you in my arms and in pouring myself into you.

Forgive the expression, dear. It is correct and it is your loving
husband who uses it.

I have never consciously misled you on the subject mentioned in
this letter. . . .

But now, my dear, I feci better for having told you the truth. Now
perhaps you will understand why I felt that you were a little hard on
poor Roma Bai. Conscious myself that I had been a much greater
sinner than she, I felt pity and thought she w'as not very wicked. . . •
My Darling, if you are not too deeply hurt by what I have told
you, telegraph to me that you still love me. I feel as if I could not

2 45

MiN/sr^

India Called Them

e suspense of a reply by post. But, no, I won’t ask this>
[p^hat you think proper. . . .

P.S. Now perhaps you may understand better what I told you
about my feeling Rousseau to be my sort of spiritual father.

Whether Annette telegraphed in answer to this is not clear.
What she wrote left Henry in no doubt that her love for him
was increased rather than diminished. She too added a postcript:

P.S. Perhaps I know about you several things which you would
be surprised to learn, so do not make more confessions till we are
together.

Soon after, Henry, in Calcutta, read an article called “The
Christian Harem,” and tried to inveigle Annette into a discussion
of the relations of men and women generally and of differing
moral standards. Annette did her best for him—even said she
would read the article and perhaps review it—but she was not
really interested. “Women don’t know one another in these
delicate matters because we do not discuss them.” That was
Annette’s experience sixty years ago. To Henry she was content
to say, having studied Balzac: “I conclude that we are his rarae
aves—we combine marriage and love.”

There was never a conclusion more sure. Two days after his
confession, nine years from marriage, Henry sent Annette a love
letter of purest Beveridgian vintage.

7/6/84.

Has Mr. Woakes done you any good? Never mind, my dear, I
sometimes think I like you better for requiring my help. If you could
hear well there is nothing I could do for you except love you. You
are so much quicker and cleverer than I in all practical matters that,
if it were not for your deafness, you would leave me hopelessly
behind. Of course you know, however, that I should be delighted to
see you restored and able to enjoy fully the company of others.

Do you remember the lines in In Mcmoriam “But he was strong
where I was weak. etc. etc!” I think this applies to you for you are
strong where I am weak, though I cannot say that the converse of
this is true. I think if I had not married you I would have abandoned
society and been a Bohemian. You have raised me, my dear, and
strengthened me and I feel at times so strong and self-contained in
consequence. When they are all speaking of what I do not understand

246

VIQNl 4°

Trio at Southport in i 885

The Family is Broken

\ feel lonely or timid. I feel I have a rock that I can

k is my wife and family. __

^ y le says °f Cromwell’s soldiers: They feared God and so soon
lost all other kind of fear. I fear to do anything that may disgrace
my wife and family, or make Annette sorry for me, and so I do not
think I have much other fear. The Governor-General, die Lieutenant-
Governor, and the High Court all seem to me mere words and
collections of words. Or they are like the sea which can come thus
far and no further. A steamer in a storm is safe, so long as she does
not allow the waves to come aboard and put out the fires of her
engines. When this happens, as in the case of the luckless London,
she is lost indeed. So a man, however he be buffeted by the outside
world, is safe so long as he keeps the sacred hearth-fire alive. But if
he allow the great waters of the outside to come in and quench the
flame of his inner heart then: Eleu loro he is borne down with the
dying (isn’t this expression in a song in Marmion ?)

Lightened by confession, Henry felt even more able to expand
to Annette. It seems to me that I write ever and cover reams of
paper. She learned not only about die wicked Colonel, but
about all the rest of the ship’s company, including the Chevalier
Captain whose book on the art of navigation Henry dutifully
tried to understand, and an Italian youngster, Gessi, whose father,
campaigning with Gordon against slave-traders, had died in the
Soudan and who, like every other stray creature that crossed
Henry’s path, saw in him a friend in need.

He speaks and writes three languages he says and he can play the
piano well and can climb like a monkey but of course he has no
common sense. He has taken it into his head that I can do something
lor him and would like I daresay to come with me to India, but I am
not going to take him. His connections and claims are Egyptian and
he must just have patience till Gordon comes back from Khartum.

Annette was not much interested in discussing sex relations.
That problem for her was completely and happily settled.
There were other problems on which she was prepared to argue
'with Henry for ever. One was religion; this blazed up later into
considerable dispute, when the children came of age to be sent
regularly to church or not to be sent. Another was India, and
the relations of British and Indians there. This blazed now.
Annette, though she never lost her many Indian friends, had

247

mi$Tf?

India Called Them IOT

As )changed in feeling about India. She had come oiUj il j
ic opposition to Henry on the Ilbert Bill; when she reached
London in the spring of 1883, she was taken to task severely by
Miss Manning of the National Indian Association and odier
friends of her pro-Indian past for her letter to the Englishman
against the Bill. Henry, while sorry about the letter, defended
it as temperately worded. But then, Henry was prepared to
defend anything. Annette seldom erred on the side of mildness
when her feelings were roused. In this letter she had written
that the social ideas of India were still on the outer verge
of civilization; in recalling some of the events of the Sepoy
Mutiny she had used the term “savages.” Annette was a bonny
fighter, prepared in this as in other matters to defend herself by
carrying the war into the enemy’s country. On Miss Manning’s
attack she had written to Henry at the time:

9/6/83.

Except for your regret, I cannot regret having written the letter to
the Englishman. I think it very extraordinary that any people should
find fault with the calling of the murderers of women and children
“savages.” I should call any man and any nation a savage who did it.
So should I, speaking as an English woman, call uncivilised a people
which cares about stone idols, enjoys child marriage and secludes its
women, and where at every point the fact of sex is present to the
mind. I call it uncivilised in any nation when I see two people
together and the notion of their being a man and a woman is the first
suggested by their manner and not the more commonplace one (as in
England) of two people.

This was Annette’s central position. She thought India uncivi¬
lized, not because she was English but because she was a woman.

When, in the year after the Ilbert Bill and Annette’s letter,
Henry reached India, he felt at once the discomfort of roused
racial feeling. He was posted to Calcutta, to take die place of a
colleague on leave as judge for the twenty-four Pergunnahs. He
wrote from there in August, pouring out his thoughts as he sat
alone after dinner in the United Services Club, beneath the
swinging punkah.

23/8/84.

I am longing to see you once more and to talk to you and yet I
ometimes feel doubtful if you will be happy here. India is getdng

248

The Family is Broken

<§L

Peasant with the §trife between natives and Europeans,

ups are being formed and it is becoming more and more
It to belong to both. Each has its watchword and each challenges
whoever wishes to enter. I have never suppressed my opinions and I
never shall but there are many people who do not like me in conse¬
quence. Not, I hope, that I care much for this but still one who is
outside of either camp and yet would like to enter bodi and stride
about in them feels rather lonely. It is a fine tiling to dwell apart like
a star, but the one who does that must have die strength of a star.
Sometimes when I hear English music or see the faces of English
children I feel as if there was a great gulf between me and the natives.
I think of a Scotch bum dancing down under the hawthorns and every
now and then resting in a clear pool and I say is not this fairer or at
* least more homelike than diis great turbid, rolling Hooghly which
sucks swimmers under and breeds sharks and crocodiles. And yet it is
a grand river too. To see it sometimes, when coming back from the
Howrah Station at night, shining in the moonlight and rushing under
the bridge is a thing to be remembered. The firm, tall-masted ships,
the strange boats plying on it, the unusual foliage on its banks are all
striking. Coming back from Bow Reach die other day we passed
close by the King of Oude’s palaces and I saw the house for the birds,
the palace of the chief queen, the peacocks and the thousands of
pigeons. It was all strange and fantastic but yet gorgeous too. Poor
Bishop’s College which its founder probably thought would become
an Oxford is now given up to engineering.

I am afraid I am getting disconnected and so I shall stop for tonight.
Good night my darling. I shall go and read Mr. Justice Field on
Landholding. It is a good book apparently and I would advise you
to read it.

A few weeks later came another letter in the same strain.

13/9/84,

My darling, I hope and trust that you and I will not fall out on the
native question. I am rather lonely about it here and want sympathy.
I may be all wrong but I have been pretty faithful to the Bengalees
for a quarter of a century and am too old to change now. The evil is
that it is more and more difficult to remain neutral or impartial. The
High Court I think has never sunk so low as it now is. There is hardly
a clever man in it except Field and he is besotted with arrogance.

The Marquis of Ripon is a feeble soul such as a pervert might be
expected to be, and Thompson honest to the backbone is in weak
health and is being gradually shoved by circumstances into the arms

249

India Called Them

Anglo-Indian Defence Association. I.see no deliverer
one who might be like the shadow of a great rock in a weary

Henry, however, was not wholly without kindred spirits. He
told Annette of a dinner that he had given to Shane, Stack and
Cotton, and about the last of diese added:

I think I shall cultivate Cotton. There is something interesting
about him. I always remember that he came to our marriage. I like
his outspokenness and want of canny reserve. I have enough of that
in myself.

Cotton, who became Chief Commissioner of Assam, and Sir
Henry Cotton, K.C.S.I., was at that time going through the
stage of being out of favour which he described in his Memoirs
as having blocked his career for several years. 1

To the letter written beneath the swinging punkah Annette
answered that she thought that Henry still had a good deal of
superstition about India.

22/9/84.

You desire to be kind and just and are it—you shrink from any¬
thing which seems like an assertion of superiority in any way, but the
real fact is that race for race superiority is on our side. ... If I
thought that you could ideally forsake the bum for the Hooghly I
think I should stay in England.

Here Annette stepped for a moment beyond her usual line
into the Anglo-Indian camp. But she did not stay there. And
before long she was to make—and keep—a vow never to be in
public opposition to Henry again. His wish was realized: “Ilbert
Bills and Babus shall not divide us.” Henry's last letter to Annette
in England was a love letter of the old style—complete with
confession and literary allusions:

21/9/84.

I have been enjoying myself this day. I got the sofa carried under
the punkah and then I lay and read Martineau’s sermons and meditated
and smoked two Burma cheroots. Don't be vexed with me for this
last statement. I thought of omitting it but then I said then I would
not tell her the whole truth and would make her think me more
spiritual than I am. I really smoke very little.

1 Indian and Home Memories , by Sir Henry Cotton, K.C.S.I., p. 187.

250

mtSTfty

TJie Family is Broken

that you are really coming and that an outburst of
irake you unhappy and think that you should come at oA
iclined to tell you how my heart cries out for you at times,
own darling shall I really see you and talk to you of the children and
of ourselves and all things good and noble. I am sick to death at
times of the vapidity of Anglo-Indian life and of the stupid talk of club¬
men. Not that I would be unfair. There are some clever, well informed
men here but only one or two care for tHe things I care for. And the
best of them cannot make up for the absence of my own true love.
How shall I tell you how or why I love you. I feel that you know
me so thoroughly and that you love me though fully knowing all my
faults and weaknesses. Soul of my soul, may you live long and guide
our children aright. Somehow when I look at the portfolio of pictures
as I did last evening, I think that we must return and go and live with
our children at Dresden or some such place where we can feast our
eyes and our ears. But don’t, my dear, accept this impulse as my
deliberate thought. I have immense pleasure often in my work here
and believe that in no other country could I get the same development
for my faculties.

And you, too, I think, will find your true sphere in India. It was
the choice of your youth and you will not forsake it, I think I could
go on writing to you for ever but that would be foolish would it not ?
Yes, what fun we have had together. How merry we have been in
one another’s company. How much good have you not done me.
How much I have learnt from you.

Your loving husband

H. Beveridge.

Dear, I have been reading George Eliot. Are you not Romola, a
purified and chastened Romola and one married to a man not quite
so bad as Tito but still weak like him ? How beautiful these concluding
chapters are:—“That rare possibility of self-contemplation which
comes in any complete severance from our wonted life made her judge
herself as she had never done before. The compunction which is
inseparable from a sympathetic nature keenly alive to the possible
experience of others, began to stir in her with growing force. She
questioned the justness of her own conclusions, of her own deeds.”

Dear, I don’t quote these words as implying any blame of you. I
quote them I do not exactly know why.

I think I can imagine you speeding to our dear little Willie as
Romola does to Lillo. Please read chapters 68 and 69 over again.
Also the Epilogue.

2 51

MIN ISTff

India Called Them

ile Henry was feeling solitary in India, Annetl
;ed in a determined attack on her deafness and its causesT
nearly every week, from the second half of May to the end
of September, she recorded one or more visits to a Mr. Woakes,
a surgeon for nose and ears. Mr. Woakes spent most of his time
apparently on Annette’s nose rather than on her ears; he said a
catarrhic condition had caused a bone to grow out in her nose;
he said sometimes that he hoped to get rid of the bone by treat¬
ment, sometimes that he must operate, and finally in September
that there was no time to operate before Annette left for India.
She took her son Willie with her once and he was allowed to sit
on Mr. Woakes’ knee and look down his mother’s throat. “He
regarded me altogether from a scientific point of view, with
dispassionate interest,” was Annette’s account of tliis proceeding.

Mr. Woakes hurt Annette very badly and admired the way in
which she stood it; he was sometimes depressed and counselling
patience, and sometimes elated and optimistic. Of one of these
last occasions Annette wrote:

31/7/84.

So dear! if I am not cured it must be from some extraordinary
perversity on my part. He says I have the best spirits he ever saw and
uttered other praises; amongst others he thinks I like to be hurt.

Henry from India was as comforting as only Henry could be.

22/6/84.

. . . Do not, dear, fret yourself about your ears. If Dr. . Woakes
can do you any good I shall be delighted, but if he can't I shall love
you all the same. I am rather afraid of your getting dejected if he does
not succeed in improving your hearing.

But never mind, my darling. If you were not deaf there would be
nothing for which I could pity you and you know I always like to
feel compassion for people. ...

I should have liked to see Willie looking down your throat.

Henry was anxious, for he never wholly believed in Mr.
Woakes. He consulted two doctor friends in Calcutta and they
went together and turned up Mr. Woakes in the Medical
Directory and agreed that, from the description of his qualifications
there, he ought to be a good man.

252

The Family is Broken

"'question put to me has been if the hearing
liffmed. They say that if they are, it is difficult to see anatomically
that an affection of a bone in the nose could cause the deafness. How¬
ever, my darling, go on with the treatment. I do not think from all
inquiries I have made that Dr. Woakes’ treatment can do you any
injury.

There was never any trouble that Henry would not take to
help any one for whom he could exercise compassion. The
upshot of this year’s struggle was that Annette’s deafness
remained as before or increased. It had reached die point already
when the children had to crave an audience of her. “ ‘Mamma,
may I say something,’ they all now say.”

All this doctoring meant also much expense. Reporting her
expenditure in London, Annette declared that “we cannot afford
to give more in charity.” She declared also her intention (though
in the end she did not carry it out) of travelling to India by the
Italian Rubattino Line, as Henry had done, for economy. She
studied Henry’s financial position and reported.

12/7/84.

I read your will, my dearest, with sadness. Do you know that you
have left your mother £144 per annum and that your capital, even if
you count die £800 made over to the Trustees will barely bring in
£120! We must indeed save hard and must not have luxuries such
as charities etc. until you have enough capital to carry out your will
and have repaid what is due of the children’s money.

Annette had other tiresome and expensive things to do in
England this year, in addition to the penance of Mr. Woakes.
Her brother-in-law, James Mowatt, had insisted finally on
ceasing to be her trustee; she had to find a successor and took a
solicitor, the brother of an old friend. Fortunately she did not
altogether trust this new trustee; that is to say, she did no allow
him to change her investments. She escaped dius some Heavy
losses which he brought on his own sister. In due course another
and more reliable trustee had to be found. By the time she had
finished .with it, Annette was sick of her marriage settlement.
She often explored vainly the possibility of bringing it to an end.

The children and the surgeon filled most of Annette's six

2 53

MINISr^

India Called Them

without Henry in England. One or two of her le
lat it was a time of acute political crisis. There were
genian bombs in Pall Mall and Scotland Yard. There was a
Franchise Bill whose rejection by the House of Lords led to a
political demonstration which Annette went to see as a sightseer
w ith an American friend.

Berkhampstead, 22-24/7/84.

Yesterday there was this great political demonstration about the
Franchise Bill. I went down to Grindlay’s w r ith an American lady who
lives in 12 Brompton Square and was most politely received and given
a window which allowed full view. It was a marvellous sight. We
could see the higher part of Trafalgar Square crowded with spectators
and Parliament Square black with the throng. There was a thick band
of spectators on either side of the procession and it was marvellous
to me to see their permanence and their quiet manner. As for the
procession, it first struck me as very dull—then I found that I had
mistaken what I had come to see—for it was not for entertaining me
these men were marching—then I became fascinated by the long
sluggish flow of uniform soberness and felt that I was gazing on a
human river. The notion of strength grew as the hours went on.
Three hours we saw it pour past us. . . . There were interesting
distinctions observable in the sets of men and women, for there were
many w r omen and many babies also. The 4000 agricultural labourers
w'ere an interesting set with faces full of character and there was
something quite pathetic in their country flowers in the town atmo¬
sphere. Then the hatters made a great variety in the line because their
tall hats followed a monotony of low crowned ones and they seemed
to have a “topper” air. Cabinet-makers looked feeble and weedy —
bakers were sturdy—there were perambulator makers—chiefly
women—also very weedy. It was very interesting. Why was re¬
distribution not discussed with the Franchise Bill, I wonder. I don’t
see how the Conservatives could be expected to give carte blanche
to the Radicals in the matter and I think everyone must wish for a
strong opposition in order to get somewhat nearer to the truth than
an overwhelming force on either side would allow. Good night, my
own dear love. . . .

Thursday: I believe I could be very happy living within this
distance of London if there are any other not orthodox or rather
tolerant people.

Annette’s first idea of sailing from Genoa by the economic
Rubattino Line was abandoned as part of another change of plan.

2 54

MIN ISTft

The Family is Broken

unlike her full sister Fanny, had declined and
•ntinued to decline to be on bad terms with her stepmom^
Akroyd. On her first visit to England with Henry, when
newly married, she had seen little of this other family. On this
second visit she saw a great deal of them, and stayed with her
stepmother at 28, Regent’s Park Road whenever she was in
London without Henry and the children.

This rapprochement to the other half of William Akroyd’s
family was made simpler by the gulf which for die moment
divided Annette from her full sister Fanny. The joint occupation
of Keavil had ended in an explosion. Fanny for the time being
was quarrelling with Annette as she quarrelled always with Mrs.
Akroyd.

Annette began to feel herself at home at 28, Regent’s Park
Road. She found her half-sisters Katie and Nellie interesting and
attractive. She gave character sketches to Henry:

Katie is full of unexpected talents. She lacks the pressure which
poverty would have given to have been an artist. Her slightest
sketches are full of satisfaction to the eye. We are urging upon her
the extreme desirability of getting pictures ready for an exhibition
in order to lay the foundation for the wages of a useful maid to keep
her neglected wardrobe in order! She reads too and has also much
character, detests dress-making and has agreed with Mr. North that
they shall eat beef-steak daily.

Nellie on the other hand is a regular housekeeper and first rate dress¬
maker. I am growing very fond of her. She has colour and character
and I feel our sisterhood.

Both are certainly far removed from the commonplace.

Katie, at this time aged 29, was engaged to a Mr. North, whom
she married in Rome in the following year. Nellie, aged 28, after
one or two engagements, was still free. Annette discovered that
Mrs. Akroyd would dearly like her to have a trip to India under
Annette’s wing. The proposition was put to Henry with
becoming timorous circumspection, for might he not remember
Annie Goldie ?

Stratford-on-Avon, 6/8/84.

Now I am coming to what will surprise you, and I hope, my
darling, you will not also be vexed. I see a way of greatly pleasing
Mrs. Akroyd and, after all said and done, I owe her very much.

MIN ISr/f

India Called Them

you not say I should please her if I can ? The long and s|i[
4 st be at once said—she would like me to take Nellie to India
or six months, so that she might see the country. It is not a matri¬
monial crusade, for this line of life appears to be sufficiently open to
Nellie here. It is purely an indulgence of a desire to see the big world
she wants to give her daughter. . . . Now I quite expect you to be
surprised at my thinking of having another girl with me after my
failure with Annie Goldie but Nellie is a very different girl. She can
be sharp enough but there is a great deal besides sharpness in her. . . .
She has a great admiration for you.

This last touch—indeed the whole circumspection of the
approach—-was needless, and Annette knew it to be needless.
The same letter revealed that the finance of the expedition had
already been worked out; Mrs. Akroyd would provide £100
and Nellie had savings. Annette rejected a suggestion that she
should telegraph to Henry for his assent or refusal:

I knew you too well to think you would refuse her, when a refusal
must do away with the revived friendliness between us.

Of course, Henry did not refuse. He approved Annette’s plan
of bringing Nellie with her and he got to work at once at his old
game of match-making. He wrote at once from Calcutta.

29/8/84.

I am so glad that you have sent the photos. You look very handsome
and triumphant as if you said: see there is my son. Willie looks rather
sad in one photo but is very funny and sparrow-like in the other. I
always feel that he is the delicate one of the family and if he does not
thrive at Southport you might bring him out with you. My darling,
don’t say there is Henry at his old habit of making wild suggestions.
You know I am only talking to you and you may be perfectly sure
that I shall approve of whatever you do. Let us make Nellie a great
success and so wipe out our discomfiture with Annie. I think that she
would make a very good wife for Dr. O’Brien.

Annette did not think that Bengal would be a better health
resort for her son than Southport. She decided to sail with Nellie
alone on October 23rd. Four weeks before she had taken the trio
to Southport and established them with Fraulein in Miss Lewin’s
school at Bingfield; they had been enchanted to see such
quantities of sand; they had shown no fear; they promised to

25 6

The Family is Broken

happy. Anfiette returned alone for last visits ___

and last shopping; went back to Southport to say

(fiT

i tOlcJ

good-bye; went to Stourbridge to see her adopted aunt, Emma
Evers, and find great changes in the town and people; called
almost at the very end on her critic, Miss Manning; and so with
Nellie went aboard the Khedive at Gravesend. She had taken
Henry’s advice diis time about her journey—to go all the way
round by sea to Calcutta.

In deciding on her mode of travel Annette had the advantage
of exhaustive advice from Henry, including a memorandum of
four foolscap pages written by him in the Canal and describing
the disadvantages and advantages of the route to Genoa and the
Rubattino line—how water actually ran from a tap in the cabin
and ran out again through turning another tap, how there was
a shade over the cabin light “so that if you go to bed before ix
p.m. you do not have it glaring at you,” how “they give you
brandy as well as tea and coffee at 9.”

Italian seems to be the only thing spoken on board. It is spoken
very distinctly and one soon begins to pick up die meaning of the
conversation. I realise somewhat though what you must feel when
conversation is going on in which you cannot join.

Henry always thought first of others.

257

MIN/Sr^

The History of Bengal is perfectly immaterial but the
top stone of your official career is not.

Annette from England to Henry in Calcutta,

June 23, 1884.

Meres said that when he got home he would tell you to
come out at once and stop my mouth and take away my pen
and that then I would get into the High Court.

Henry from Calcutta to Annette in England,

August 15, 1884.

This is a most uninteresting place. I hope that none of you
will ever have to live in it.

Annette from Faridpur to Bingfield,

December 24, 1885.

My second son born between 4 and 5 p.m.

Annette’s Diary for October 2, 1885.

My year at Faridpur was one of the happiest Oj my life.

Annette from Darjeeling to Henry in Calcutta,

March 13, 1887.

wmsr/f

Chapter XIV

FARIDPUR VICTORY

T HROUGH all this interchange of letters and plans
and love-making on their first long separation ran the
uncertainty as to where Annette would find Henry
stationed when she arrived. His post in Calcutta as District
Judge for the twenty-four Pergunnahs was temporary; he was
taking the place of another on leave. When this acting appoint¬
ment ended would he go up, as he might, to the High Court or
to one of the newly established Appellate Benches? Would he
go down; that is to say, be sent away from the centre of Govern¬
ment to a country district?

Henry was ambitious for himself. Annette was even more
ambitious for him. When he wrote of retiring to live at Geneva
or Dresden or Edinburgh and compile a History of Bengal, she
answered:

23/6/84.

The History of Bengal is perfectly immaterial but the top stone of
your official career is not. It is not possible for you to retire yet. You
have not only to save money but you must round off your career.
Life is certainly not long enough for two professions or religions.

Just before this she had reported to him the remark of a friend:

Mrs. Abercrombie has just come. She informs me that she is sure
you are to go to the H.C.^So dear! perhaps you will settle in Calcutta
after all.

In India things had a different aspect. Some of Henry’s Patna
judgments had been harshly handled by the High Court and he
was not in good odour with them. In Scotland, in the year before,
Annette had sent him a report on one of his cases, and he had
commented: “The H.C. has been needlessly severe and Justice
Norris is an irritable man.” This particular member of the High
Court was one whose unfriendly judgments Henry came specially
to fear; Judge Norris was describv: 1 by a younger contemporary
two or three years later: “a radical barrister and an amusing
downright character. How he hated Indian life! He loved to tell

2 59

India Called Them

§L

S par stories of die Western circuit.” 1 It was perhaps a
at Henry, into whom India had been burned, should liave
fate in India's service so much affected by one who hated
Indian life.

Apart altogedier from his technical merits as a judge, in the
state of public feeling during the middle 'eighties in India, Henry,
with his Bengali sympathies, was bound to appear a dangerous
man to those in authority. He did nothing to make himself look
safe. He thought as badly of the High Court as diey did of him.
He went to the Eden Gardens, and seeing natives of India kept
by a policeman out of a place to which Europeans were admitted,
he wrote a letter of protest to the Englishman . In this he described'’
the statue of Lord Auckland as facing the gardens and turning his
back on the High Court.

The inscription below commends him for his love of the “justice
which is blind to distinctions of race,” but this was written in 1848
and I suppose things have changed since then. 2

Henry did not put his name to the letter but, as Annette
no doubt rightly inferred, most people would spot the author.
Henry's friend Meres had reported to him early in August a
remark by one of the leading judges “diat he did not see why
Beveridge should be passed over.” But Meres knew why:

15/8/84.

Meres said that when he got home he would tell you to come out
at once and stop my mouth and take away my pen and that then I
would get into the High Court.

And stop my mouth, I hope, you shall, but you will do so with
kisses. I can’t help letting out occasionally though I really do try to
be quiet and self-contained.

It became clear to Henry that he was not going higher. At one
stage he had written to Annette that he could always fall back
on Bankipur from which he had taken furlough the year before,
but this w^as denied to him, and he did not really mind. Nor was
he to be kept on in Calcutta. In July, soon after his return from

* < icrald Ritcliic: The Ritchies in India, p. 364.

» This letter drew an answer next day signed “Trouser $11005” whose writer asserted
that ail persons decently attired were allowed anywhere in the gardens and that only
the dhcotie-wearing part of the population were consigned to a particular part of the
promenade. But Henry in a letter to Annette maintained that this was not so.

260

Faridpur Victory

^ while a^tfng for the 24 Pergunnahs, he

aDfiy&cf Cliittagong and had impulsively and rather
refused it, “thinking it was a dodge to get me out of Calcutta”;
later Henry felt that he had radier put his foot in it in tliis affair.
By the middle of September he realized that the chances -were
against his staying in Calcutta:

13/9/84.

Browne will take charge on 1st November and I doubt if the Govt,
will have the courage to make me additional in opposition to the
clamorous Charles. . . . The said Charles is a dreadful ass. When he
got engaged they say he telegraphed home—Engaged Marquis Niece.
She is very nice and I am sure he bores her dreadfully about his
grievances. . . .

At present my inclination is to sit quiet and say and do nothing.
If they keep me in Calcutta I shall be glad and if not I shall philoso¬
phise. I am very glad and am grateful to Govt, that I have been allowed
to be in Calcutta for these months. It has been a sort of rounding off
of my service, to use your happy expression, and has enabled me to
see things which I would not otherwise have seen. The Eden Gardens
are a perpetual delight to me.

Towards the end of September, Henry wrote to Sir John
Edgar, the Secretary to the Bengal Government, to ask what was
to happen to him. He received the answ'er that he was to be
appointed to Faridpur, in his rank of District and Sessions Judge,
as from the beginning of November. Faridpur was a district on
the Ganges, next door to Henry’s earlier district of Bakarganj,
and as completely part of the Bengal backwoods.

Annette heard of Henry’s appointment to Faridpur just before
she herself started for India with her half-sister Nellie Akroyd.
The news was a severe disappointment. It meant not merely that
Henxy was not being promoted either to die High Court or to
one of the Appellate Benches; Annette had probably made up
her mind that the first of these at least was not an early proba¬
bility. It meant much worse than that. Going to Faridpur was
relegation. As Henry himself admitted later, it made liim again
a bacha sahib, a small man instead of a bigwig. It knocked
endways Annette’s plan of introducing Nellie to Indian society.
There was no society in Faridpur.

On the day before she left London Annette sent a telegram

indignantly

India Called Them

§L

telling him to “claim Bankipur.” She followe
letter which Henry did not keep, but whose nature can
3 e inferred from Annette’s character and Henry’s answers. In
these replies he defended himself, the Government and Faridpur.

U.S. Club, 28/10/84.

My dear Love,

I got your telegram of the 21st telling me to claim Bankipur but
the matter had already been settled and besides I have an aversion to
claiming anything. I did not give up Bankipur in my letter to Edgar
but I left it to them and the result is Faridpur. I don’t think it will suit
us badly. It is quiet and healthy and near Calcutta.

In other letters he embroidered these themes.

Government is not to blame in the matter, as I told them 1 wanted
a Bengali district. ...

Faridpur is small and dull certainly but nobody ever called it
unhealthy. . . . Surely if you lived for three years in a feverish
place like Rangpur and nursed a child there you can live for a few
months at a place which is certainly not feverish.

If you want to go the Drawing Rooms etc. it will not be difficult
to manage.

The station is pretty and has a noble avenue.

The most gallant part of these letters was the defence of Faridpur.

It might be a healthy station, but on her way out Annette
had heard at Madras that Mr. Pawsey, the Magistrate of Faridpur,
had just died there of cholera. All that Henry could say was that
“Pawsey had not a strong constitution and so you need not be
afraid on my account. The epidemic will in all probability have
ceased long before you arrive in Calcutta.”

Faridpur might have a noble avenue, but it lacked bread,
meat, drinking water and coal. “I have been arranging,” wrote
the ever- thoughtful Henry, “about getting drinking water from
the Padima and about improving the bread.” How Annette did
ultimately secure these necessaries of life she described in letters
to the children at Bingfield:

24/12/84.

This is a most uninteresting place. I hope none of you will ever
have to live in this place, but if you do you will find much that is
charming to the eye. One thing I do not like at all; we can get no

262

Faridpur Victory

eat unless we send to Calcutta which is very far. On Christ'
'we had some beef and the gentlemen were highly pleased. Now
how should you like to get meat only once in three weeks?

Sometimes supply was interrupted by floods.

18/9/85.

Since the railway was broken we have not been able to have any
bread till last night when the baker of Faridpur made some for us.
It was curious bread, so sticky that I think he meant to gum our mouths
up so that we should not speak. I do not know when we shall have
more bread.

Drinking water depended on boiling and filtering.

22/3/85.

Every few days a bullock cart goes down to the big river and on it
are fastened two immense black jars and these are brought back full
of water from the river. Then this is boiled and filtered before we
drink it.

Faridpur, finally, might be “near Calcutta,” but the idea that
it was a convenient centre from which to attend vice-regal
drawing-rooms was one of Henry’s brighter flights of fancy.
To reach Faridpur from Calcutta meant a train journey by night
without a sleeper (“You will travel down in the Ladies Com¬
partment,” urged Henry, “and go early so as to get a good seat.”),
followed by a Hobson’s choice either of a six-hour jolt for
twenty miles in a palki or a row of seventeen miles in a boat,
followed by three miles of palki. To reach Calcutta from
Faridpur meant the same thing in reverse. The method by which
ultimately Annette was brought 'to Faridpur by Henry made
demands on her knowledge of French as well as of English.

Faridpur, 5/12/84.

Of course you know now that I shall not meet you at Rajbari but
at Goalundo. The train is advertised to be due at Goalundo before 6
but it seldom comes in before 7 a.m. I will bring a khitmutgar and a
chuprassy w r ith me and will give you chota hazri. . . .

I have got a swift fishing boat twenty yards long and twelve feet
broad to take me and to bring us back. There will be eight oars and
we will travel swiftly. Another boat will bring the servants and the
baggage. II n’ ya pas de lieu d’aisance dans le bateau mais j’ apporterai

263

MINIS/*,,

India Called Them

‘rites vaisseaux ou assiettes et tu puis te servir d’elles et
:ter hors de la fenetre.

As Annette observed at this time, Henry was a very thoughtful
man.

In his defence of Faridpur, Henry was on stronger ground in
reminding Annette that she had written once that it was more
important to choose a place which suited him than one which
suited her, as he would have much more of it. He was on stronger
ground still in arguing that life at Faridpur would be cheap.

15/H/84.

We must live quietly and economically and there is no station
where we can do that better than at Faridpur. A carriage is not
required and there will be few dinner parties. I am not sorry I have
escaped Patna for it was expensive and I could not have set up there
without running into debt.

Annette saw all this. She saw also that it would be absurd to
quarrel with Henry about anything so unimportant as the
particular spot in which she should live with him in India.
She understood him when he pleaded: “I don’t think you would
really have wanted me to lower my self by canvassing for a better
station. ’ After her telegram and first letter of protest, her next
letter, written on the voyage “one day out from Malta,” was a
love letter pure and simple:

1/11/84.

The secret of happiness which we have known by the library fire
for example at Keavil is that each should show something unexpected
in speech and character. . . . Now sometimes you yawn and tell me
not to wanton in commonplaces. Do I ever yawn and tell you not to
be anything? You are perhaps not aware that you are much more
than loveable to me. You are very interesting.

And when on the last day of November she met Henry at
Calcutta, she had accepted Faridpur completely. He went back
almost at once to his station. Annette stayed in Calcutta only
long enough to make a few practical arrangements.

3/12/84.

I have bad a Committee with the khansamah and shall make a good
many purchases. I am longing to be back quietly with you and my

W'ork. . . .

264

MIN/Sr^

Faridpur Victory

(St

4/12/

trying to do ^11 you suggest. . . . Fourteen packages 1
as kinds have gone off now. . . . You are certainly, my dear,
a very thoughtful man! You have taken too much trouble for us. I
do appreciate it, however, even if I think we might have roughed it
at Faridpur. I am longing to be with you.

She responded also to his request for a set of gardening tools for
a gentleman.

Faridpur, 4/12/84.

Having become a bacha sahib I think of taking to gardening. The
garden here is so pretty that it tempts one to garden.

Within a week of reaching Calcutta, Annette proceeded by night
train and by swift fishing boat to join Henry at Faridpur, though
she did not go to the house he had pictured to her at first—the
Circuit House of two bedrooms and three bathrooms. Henry, on
second thoughts, had contrived to get hold of the one other
available house—larger though not so dry, and had prepared it
for Annette’s coming: “The house has been cleaned up some¬
what and the pipul trees growing on the roof have been cut
down.”

There was one member of die party whom diese arrangements
did not suit at all, and who had, perhaps, a just grievance against
them. In the few days she had in Calcutta, Annette contrived to
take Nellie to several parties, but had to confess that filings were
not going well:

3/12/84.

Nellie was much mortified last night [at the Saturday Club] because
no partners were introduced to her and mortification in an impulsive
person makes very disagreeable results.

Henry had always thought Nellie a handful. A few years before
he had reported to Annette in Shillong that “Miss Nellie’s
intended is a coal merchant named Wooley and he is 6 ft. 6 ins.
in height. He will need all that to keep Nellie in awe.” That
particular intended had felt himself or had been felt unequal to
his task. Nellie had come out to India untrammelled, but with
no idea of sitting in the fiats and floods of Faridpur. Henry
realized what was expected of him: “I think that when we get

265

India Called Them

irt, a buggy, three horses, and an elephant, for Net
ill stop—till next pay day.”

But Henry did not have to provide, any of these things. One
°- the rooms in the Faridpur house was marked “Aunt Nellie’s
room in the plan which Annette sent to the trio in Southport,
but Nellie never came to Faridpur. She was invited by new-made
friends to visit more interesting places; there was no lack of
hospitality in India. In a few months Annette got news that
Nellie haci engaged herself to Mr. Fowler of the Salt Department,
and on October 7, 1885, the marriage took place in London!
Only a week before Annette’s other half-sister had been married
in Rome to Mr. North. So all William Akroyd’s surviving
daughters reached the goal appointed for Victorian young ladies.
Six months after, their brother, young William Akroyd, married
in New Zealand and settled there.

Henry and Annette, reunited and left to themselves in Faridpur,
settled down to a second honeymoon. Their children had become
the subject of a monthly cheque of £30 to Miss Lewin and of
ueekly letters to Southport. There were no outlying districts for
Henry to visit for sessions as there had been at Rangpur. They
were never separated except for a few days when Henry went
to consult libraries in Calcutta. As a consequence, for the year
1885 almost alone in all their married life, there are no letters at
all between Henry and Annette. But the trio at Southport were
at an age to receive letters and to write them. From these and
from Annette s diary the nature of life in Faridpur sixty years
ago can be seen.

It had few amenities. 'I he simplest comforts of life were hard
to come by. There was hardly any society: as compared with
the rounds of dinners and parties at Bankipur three years before,
and at Calcutta in later years, there is something almost pathetic
in Annette’s rare diary references to “good tennis” or “very
g >od tennis.” There were no roads to justify a carriage; the only
outing recorded by Annette this year was a boat journey through
flooded country. The simple excitements of life at Faridpur were
provided by these floods or by noxious beasts or by both in
combination.

At the end of April Henry wrote to the trio that floods were
expected.

266

— Faridpur Victory

liall go everywhere in boats. It will be nice seeing a
_ and seeing th$ people cut their rice crops in deep water,
grows as fast as the water rises and the stem is often 18 or 20 feet
long. When it is ripe the people go out on rafts or floating on jars
and cut it.

In September serious floods had materialized. Annette
described to the trio how people were living on the railway
embankment as the sole dry land, or sitting in the trees, and very
hungry.

There is not much water near our house and I do not see any of
the sad things, but I can be sorry without seeing them, can’t you.

The floods interfered with food supplies even to the judge at
Faridpur. This has been described already. So also has the
plague of “jungly pigs,” and what Annette did to reduce the
plague and how the snakes were swimming through the floods.

Amid these diversions of floods and beasts, Annette, in her
43rd year, was engaged on two major tasks. She was preparing
a fourth child for Henry. She was writing her own first book.

This fourth child—-a second son—was born, so Annette
recorded in her diary, between 4 and 5 p.m. on October 2, 1885
two-and-a-half hours from first symptom: “a bonnie healthy
little mouse and very welcome to everyone.” He received the
name of Herman. Annette recorded also great indignation with
Henry for having been afraid that the child might endanger her
life and having made plans against this. Faridpur was the next
district to Bakarganj where Henry had lost Jeanie; no doubt this
brought fear to his mind. The doctor at Faridpur was an Indian;
and he had planned to be away at the time. When Henry urged
him to stay, he declared that he had no surgical instruments if an
operation became necessary. So Henry bought the instruments
for him. Annette felt and said that if the doctor had no instru¬
ments, that meant that he had not dealt with a difficult birth for
years, and would not be of any use in any case; after all, she was
Annette and what she set herself to do she would accomplish,
whether it was a child or a book.

The first book and the fourth child at Faridpur proceeded
togedier; as Annette said afterwards, they were inseparably
connected in her mind. In her first honeymoon, Annette had

267

MIN/Sr^

India Called Them

f§L

^plated writing a book on the philosophic-religious
had interested her before Henry came. In her second
honeymoon site set to work on a book arising, from Henry’s
interests. As she said in her preface, this was her way of occupying
“one of those lacunae in Anglo-Indian life when a house is
filled by memories only by its children.” She was at that time
without knowledge of Arabic or Persian. She undertook the
translation from German of the life of Emperor Akbar written
by Count of Noer. The author, by birth a prince of the German
Imperial House, having insisted on marrying for love without
Imperial permission, had forfeited his princely title. This did not
vex him, for he was a scholar and Oriental traveller by tempera¬
ment. His health failed, however, and he died before completing
his work on Akbar. Annette’s translation was much more than a
translation; it was a revised second edition involving, with
Henry’s help, return to the original sources. It took Annette far
longer than she dreamed. Beginning in Faridpur in 1885, what
she had expected to be an easy first task of translation, she took
full five years and published only in 1890.

Though Annette, in 1885, was on a honeymoon, she was
already the mother of three children, left, in Southport with
Fraulein Vogel. She was also half-way through a painful struggle
with an aurist, due to return to him for an operation. The problem
of whether Annette should break off her honeymobn and visit
England was formally debated in March, and left formally
undecided: Henry and Annette, after setting out the pros and
cons of return, each reached independently the same conclusion
and wrote it down in Latin: non mihi tantam componere litem —
it is not for me to settle so difficult a dispute. The real question
wa s where their fourth child should be born. Annette decided
for Faridpur—for staying with Henry. The accounts of the trio
in Southport were uniformly good. The operation should w-ait.

For a mother of three children in England Faridpur had one
advantage which outweighed nearly everything on the other side.
It gave unrivalled opportunity for saving. Henry’s remark that
no carriage would be needed in Faridpur was an understatement,
a carriage would have been all but useless. So the horses retinue
of eight at Bankipur—coachman, three syces, three grasscutters,
an old woman to grind the corn—was replaced at Faridpur by

268

Faridpur Victory

attending Henry's old horse Judicial in retirem
gmen staff from ten at Bankipur became four at Faridp
5 tal staff from numbering thirty-nine at a monthly cost of
Rs. 245, became eighteen, costing Rs. 129.

The effect on Henry's financial position was notable. After
six months in Faridpur, recording Annette made die following
balance sheet for him.

Expenses

R. a. p.
1 otal Expenses 9261 5 o

Receipts

R. a. p.
Pay 13631 4 o

Interest on

Investments 395 o o

Received for

Furniture 204 10 o

14230 14 o
9261 5 o

Saved to June 30, 4969 9 o

1885 ‘

For the first—and almost die last—time in his life, Henry was
spending well within his income.

The cause of economy was favoured at this moment by a
change in Scotland. Jemima was already five years older than
when, at 84, she had written to her Benjamin:

Deai Henry I begin to understand what age brings on as it passes
over body and mind, numbing one faculty and twisting another. My
feet oegin to forget their hold of the ground and memory has become
treachery.

But she had held on gallantly, as happy, in Henry’s phrase, as
so old a person could be, tended daily by three of her children,
supported financially by the other two and notably by Henry.
At the beginning of the Faridpur period Annette’s accounts for
Henry w r ere still showing a heavy burden of contribution to
“Durham"; that is to say, the household in Torryburn of his
mother Jemima, his brother David, and his two sisters Maggie
an d Bhemie; the payment of about Rs. 320 to “Durham" every

269

India Called Them

with the rupee at is. yd. was equivalent to Ip

the spring of 1885 the Durham household was broken up,
for Jemima came to an end on March 1st, more than half-way
through her 90th year. Her old crony Jane Howison, companion
of the visit to New Lanark sixty years before and grandmother
of Jeanie, had died less than a year before in her 91st year.

Till her last week, David reported to Henry, Jemima appeared
so full of life and spirits that he “never doubted she might live
to a hundred/ 5 In that last week David read to her as usual the
Old and New Testament, Quentin Durward, a sermon of her
dead son-in-law Stephen Bell; friends came in to see her. Her
doctor son Allie was summoned as her weakness grew and in her
last days she was surrounded and tended wholly by four of her
five children; only Henry in India could not be there. Jemima
ended at last without illness or pain, with hardly a struggle.

I cannot believe yet that she is gone when I look at her empty
chair, with the little bracket above on the wall where lie her Greek
Testament and Thomas & Kempis, and think that the door is to open
and she is to come in from her bedroom leaning on her stick and
moving with some difficulty to her seat.

So wrote David, her eldest, to Henry, her youngest, in India.

The end of Jemima broke up the household that had centred
round her. Maggie at first thought that she would continue to
look after Phemie, but Phemie had other ideas. She established
herself with her owls in a cottage of her own at Crombie Point
on the Fife Coast of the Firth of Forth; there Annette found her
in the following year, in her first happy independence, “glued to
her birds 55 as Maggie said. David went off to London to live
in lodgings at Islington and haunt the libraries. Maggie made
this possible for him by giving up to him her share of all that
Jemima left of her former fortune, and wrote to tell Henry why
she had done tliis:

26/3/85.

I am thinking of you constantly and am so glad to think that dear
Annette is beside you. . . . Our dear mother had been so bright and
vigorous all winter we little thought she was so soon to be taken
from us. Her loss makes an awful Hank far more than I could ever

270

mi$Ta

Farulpur Victory

Igined. She was so full of life and individuality , her pr<?

7 to pervade the whole house. My work in this world in'
now seems over. P/iemic however still remains, and as long as my
strength lasts, it will please God, be spent for her. . . . She is very
quiet and easy to manage at present, and I do not now ever apprehend
any difficulty with her.

Dear Henry, I think it right to tell you how things stand as to that
weary-world subject money. Mamma left David The Mains of course
which will be I think £30 a year to him after taxes etc. are paid. She
also left him a third of what money was lying in the bank (£ 5 co )
and to Pliemie and me the rest of this money and the rent of the Coal
yearly, about I think £So a year. I have made over the whole of my

share to David.

I do not require any more than what dear Stephen left me (£60 a
year, 50 of which I give to the house as board and 10 I keep to dress
me etc.) The reason I gave David this, dear Henry, was that I thought
he would feel then independent and that of his own free will he
would say to you that he would no longer require your most kind
allowance.

I do not know if he will do this. I have only thought it my duty to
give you this plain statement. Oh, if we could do without being a
burden on you and Allie, how glad I should be! But God s will be
done in this as in all things.

I do not wish any wish of mine personally. I only wish to do my
duty. I fear this is like preaching—0I1 forgive it. I am only writing
my very thoughts as they come up. I feel I can do this to you and to
you only of the family, dear Henry.

For herself, with her £60 a year, Maggie took lodgings within
reach of Phemie in Torryburn and prepared herself for “the
queer outlandish dullness of living alone.” But she was not
allowed to have much experience of that; her loving selflessness
made her indispensable to her friends. When she was in her
lodgings they came to see her in droves. Whenever they met her
on the road they seized on her to visit them. Recurrently one or
other of them in trouble demanded her companionship, in Durham
itself, in the old Inzievar, in many another home. “My mission,”
she wrote to Henry, “seems at present to keep deserted women
company. I seem fated to act the part of ghost about all our old
homes. ,,

Even Phemie, who in the last weeks of being tied to Maggie
after Jemima’s death had refused to speak to her, became friendly

271

MINlSr^

India Called Them

n as she was free. “It is such a mercy,” wrote
Phemie allows me to go to see her.” She sold turkey eggs
to Maggie and bantam eggs at the same price, “which secretly
makes me open my eyes. However it is such an enjoyment to
her this egg traffic that I do not grudge it.”

So Durham was broken up for good: here was “an end of
these fine folk.” Here, too, was an end of the £150 a year which
Durham had been costing Henry. But not, of course, an end of
Henry’s help to his kin. He still allowanced David. He found or
made excuses continually for sending a £5 note to one or other
sister. And Annette backed him with gifts in kind: her regular
“afternoon tea box” from India to Maggie furnished the material
of many a cheerful feast.

The Government no doubt felt that they had treated Henry
a little shabbily in sending him to Faridpur. Within a few months
they offered him another more interesting district—Murshidabad
—but he was too happily settled to move and he declined the
offer. Just after diis offer and its refusal came news of what
Henry always regarded as one of the high spots of his official
career. In Rangpur he had tried and decided a case of disputed
succession to a very large estate—the Jalpaiguri Raj. His decision
had been reversed by the High Court. Now die Privy Council
reversed the decision of the High Court, and after six years
decided that Henry had been right all the time. About this time
Annette started entering good news in her diary under the
symbol “S.G.”; that is, subjects of gratulation. Receipt of the
report of the Privy Council decision figured here, with “a row
of sunflowers in bloom,” with “good news from the bairns,”
with the discovery of “some maunds of coal left in a go-down”
so that she could have a fire. She started also at diis time entering
“pros” of good news and “cons,” chiefly deaths of friends, but
the “cons” so soon outran the “pros” numerically that she gave
up this game. Qualitatively the “pro” of Henry outbalanced all
the “cons.”

When Henry had been all but a year at Faridpur the Govern¬
ment opened the door of return to Calcutta, as Additional
District and Sessions Judge for the 24 Pergunnahs. This offer
came just after the birth of Herman. Henry wanted to be near
the Calcutta libraries for his work on Nanda Kumar. He accepted

272

.§L

Faridpur Victory

household prepared for another major move,
did so with delight. Bogmonia the ayah had already, in
accord with a vow made beforehand, feasted fifty-six poor people
in the police lines to celebrate the coming of Herman. Now
Bogmonia and.die rest attributed to baby the good luck of
leaving the fish diet of Faridpur.

Hurree says he is very tired of fish and shall not eat any for long
after we leave this place where he cannot get anything else to make
curry. Bogmonia says that people here eat so much fish that even the
clean clothes smell of it! It is true that all our starched clothes have a
very curious smell, but I think it is from some curious starch and not
from the fish.

It might be good luck to leave Faridpur, but the journey to
Calcutta at the beginning of December proved a terrific
undertaking. On the days before starting sixty-two boxes and a
piano were sent off by boat and a very pleasant and complimentary
farewell was given to Henry by die Faridpur native society.
Then at 2 p.m. on December 1st Henry, Annette and 2-month-
old Herman left Faridpur in palkis; two-and-a-half days later diey
reached the Great Eastern Hotel in Calcutta. Annette’s diary
records the process:

At the ferry found the man had run away and our luggage had
gone round to Teprakandi by boat. Also Bogmonia! Steamer
came \ hour too soon. We could have caught it but did not like
to leave ayah who was ill. Were planted on the chur and spent
the night at the Tehsildar’s cutcherry on taktaposhes! and a few
sandwiches with rice boiled in milk. Herman quite happy. Next
day a chuprassy made us a curry! At 2 p.m. went to the ghaut.

By steamer to Goalundo dience by train to Calcutta where we
arrived three hours late owing to an accident. We had no chota
hazri as the E.B. Ry does not provide any. To G.E. Hotel fagged
to death.

ELB. nevertheless went to look for houses.

Henry, Annette and Herman had reached Calcutta with the
business of house-hunting still to be done. Their sixty-two boxes
and piano would arrive as soon as the steamer completed the
journey. Their faithful Judicial, a horse past w'ork, w'as being
marched down. Their retinue of servants, some fit, some ill,

273

India Called Them

scattered between Calcutta and Faridpur or moving
t was urgent that a house should be found at once.

After one day in the Great Eastern Hotel Annette had so far
recovered that she was able to go out early with Henry and reject
two houses found by him. Undeterred he sallied out again after
breakfast, and in the evening was able to lead her to a house that
seemed possible, 17, Lower Circular Road, Ballygunge. The
house proved later to be a fever-trap, but it was a house and
Henry and Annette found themselves at last together in
Calcutta.

Henry and Annette both looked back at their year at Faridpur
as one of die happiest of their lives. “I remember how good you
were to me in Faridpur,” wrote Henry in one of his love letters
three years later. “ Why is it that I miss you so much more this
time than in 1884? Is it that I got to love you more at Faridpur
and that every year makes me more and more unwilling to be
without you?” So Henry wrote in the separation in 1886 and
Annette gave him the answer that in the intimate life of Faridpur,
when they were alone, she had been able to show die love
which had been growing stronger under die children’s
shadow.

It was a second honeymoon made out of unpromising materials.
Annette later described the stay at Faridpur as a victory; she was
a little hurt once when Henry did not seem to realize what the
victory had cost her in determination to draw good from apparent
evil. She wrote once from Darjeeling to Henry in Calcutta.

I have said many times that, spite of privations and sorrows of
which we had many and spite of its dullness, my year at Faridpur
was one of the happiest of my life. I have not forgotten your praise
of me for the victory over Faridpur, but I can never say that I enjoyed
the place. I was happy there with you but life was very hard outside
this. I am sure I have said this to you before—I do not wish the
laurels you gave me to be taken away now by your saying I did not
fight for them.

The victory of Faridpur was made possible because, though
Annette had by no means finished with India, she thought at the
time that her trio of children had finished with it; the plan that
she had outlined before going on furlough in 1883, of establishing
them for five years at Mussooric, had faded. The children’s stay

274

mtST/fy

Faridpur Victory
port was now in her mind a complete w'eaning

§L

the time at Faridpur changed this again. It was a delight
as well as a victory because it brought her into more continuous
companionship of work and of play with Henry, and because it
brought her a second son. Both these developments, as she soon
realized, made a new complication in the problem of family life.

2 75

We (excuse me dear ) are so old that we may not see much
of our children or they of us if we wait till our retirement .

Henry from Calcutta to Annette in London,

May 22, 1886.

The darlings are very sweet but of course they are not their
father .

Annette from Epping Forest to Henry in Calcutta,

July 20, 1886.

I am to say that in selecting officers to fill the responsible
position of judges of the Calcutta High Courts the Govern¬
ment of India is guided solely by public considerations , and
the Governor-General in Council cannot admit that Air.
Beveridge has any valid ground ofcomplaint in the matter.

Government of India to Lieutenant-Governor of
Bengal, July 5, 1886.

Perhaps I do not think enough about feelings in others.
I know I value some qualities more than tender-heartedness .

Annette from Culross, Fife, to Henry in Calcutta,
August 9, 1886.

You know 1 am not really unsafe even as the driver of a
dog-cart, though I may not inspire confidence.

Henry from Calcutta to Annette in London,
September 11, 1886.

Akbar is my refuge.

Annette on journey home to Henry in Calcutta.

March 28, 1886.

Ml Wsr/tr

THE FAMILY IS UNITED

I N the spring of 1885, after declaring in Latin that she
could not decide, Annette had decided to stay in India
and have her fourth child there under Henry’s care. In the
spring of 1886 there was no doubt that she must visit England.
Annette’s aurist had told her that the operation which had been
postponed for two years before should not be postponed
indefinitely. Annette’s trio in Southport were growing weekly
more clamorous to see her. The only question was as to what
she should do about the new baby Herman. She decided that
Herman should be left in India to keep Henry company, and
she explained her reasons to the three darlings in Southport,
writing a family letter to them about family matters, as if they
were grown up. She told them that she was coming home to
see them but that Papa must stay in India to get money to feed
them and have them taught. She asked them to consider who
could best stay with Papa to save him from feeling dull and
lonely. She knew they would all be sorry not to see their little
brother so soon as they expected, but ought they not to be
pleased to give up something for their father who worked so
hard for them ? “If Herman stays here it will be better for him
and better for Papa. The journey is very long for such a wee
baby to take.”

This was just the reasoning tone of Annette’s own fathei to
her when she was 11 and had feared to go to a dentist. She
went on to give the trio an account of their new brother:

10/1/86.

Herman is very well. What he laughs most at is when we jump
him up and down on his toes, in our laps. He is very ambitious about
standing and walking and seems to forget how small he is. He
imitates what he hears; when we say “ah! he says it too, waen we
say “ugh” he says it; when Bogmonia squeals to him he makes such
sharp noises that I think he is crying. He is now fed from a soda-water
bottle because so many proper baby’s bottles were broken that aynn
said we would not throw any more rupees away on him! Everyone

277

India Called Them

just like his mother and I think he is just like you

So 6-month-old Herman was left in India, and on March 21,
1886, Annette sailed from Calcutta in the Ballarat . She was
escorting a friend, Miss Murray, so graceful as to earn the
sobriquet of “The Madonna,” and she found many interesting
and friendly passengers, including the distinguished journalist
George Augustus Sala, who copied out poems by Andrew
Marvell for her. She was anydiing but alone. She was also any¬
thing but content as she travelled home.

28/3/86.

Spite of its fronded palms I regret to see Ceylon. I do not know
. . . why all the regrets of our riven home should be more poignant
here than anywhere else. However, my darling, I think how rich I
really am in you and our children and I try to keep on with what
scant courage I possess. Akbar is my refuge! . . .

I imagine I ought to be satisfied for I have friendliness but you
know I am grasping in some ways. I want my own at times with a
longing I can only still by work.

She found even less reason for content in England. Travelling
overland from Marseilles, she met the trio and their Fraulein
Vogel, not at Bingfield in Southport but with their adopted
uncle and aunt the Turners near Stockport. That was a delight,
but for Annette it proved an awakening from a fool’s paradise.
The management of the ideal home found for the children with
a friend at Stockport had proved to be better in intention than
in practice. Fraulein was “very low-spirited and declining to
return to Southport.” Next day Letty said that she did not like
Bingfield; “it would be nice if Miss L. were away.” Next day
Sonnie weighed in and “announced his sentiments about not
returning to Bingfield.” The darlings were “all very incisive in
their remarks and opinions.” Wherever else they went they
would not, if they could help it, go back to Bingfield. They
carried their first point and did not do so.

Where they should go was settled by two letters, written
independently at practically the same moment in the same sense
in Calcutta and in London.

278

Jemima at 88

The Family is United

17, Ballygunge Circular Road, 1 6 May, 18!
reunion with the children must have been charming.
t 5 nia says you had better bring them all out. Don’t you think it
would be a good plan? With the falling rupee a house and a governess
at Mussoorie or Darjeeling would be a saving.

28, Regent’s Park Road, 15-19th May, 1886.

Last night your dear letter came. I cannot help having a heart-ache
when one of yours comes. It is such a sorry substitute although so
very welcome and so comforting. Dearest husband, I had an inspiration
last night, I think it must be so called because it solves so many hard
problems. I see you separated from your cliildren and deprived of
their charm. I see anxiety and the torture of parting before them and
me. Letty feels it very much and so do the others, I think. They do
not however dwell on it as she does. Our plans have gone agait and
others must be made. I sat by the fire last night with Kumad and your
letter came and when I had read your words that the snow and rain
were too much for the babes in England and when he said “Take the
little children, they are really too small to be left at home without
their mother,” it shot through me that I would give ourselves the
happiness of having them with us and unsay my declared resolution
that I would never take them back. It is not a foolish dream I know
for these reasons:—(our first care is of course for them). They have
been at home three years and are strong and well. They could I believe
remain in Calcutta three months without hurt and spend the rest of
the year in Darjeeling. There are difficulties but these are everywhere.
I think they could stay out some three years without harm to education
if I had a good governess with Fraulein. I think too that w'e could
have furlough. At any rate, you would have them and they would
learn to know you and would be within easy reach of you and me.
We could spend all the holidays with them.

There is no need to invoke telepathy as the explanation of
this simultaneous idea in Calcutta and in London. It was the
natural result of the same considerations working on two minds
that had grown close together. But neither of the two could be
certain how the idea would be received at the other end of the
line of communication. Each adopted, therefore, the same device
of fathering the idea on an Indian friend—Henry on the ayah
Bogmonia, Annette on Henry’s protege Kumad.

Of the two Henry was the least certain of his reception; the
children, after all, were in Annette’s sphere of decision. He

279

India Called Them

§L

d to his objective by cunning parallels. He had prep
u 4 y to his letter of May 16th by earlier letters: “Life is "too
long for such separations and we have nothing after it perhaps. 5 ’
(Apr. 20). “I miss you dreadfully and shall begin soon to count
die days till you return. ... I am afraid there is too much
snow and rain for the children in England.” (Apr. 26). This was
the letter which Annette had just received when she' wrote hers

of May 19th.

And even when Henry had admitted authorship of his plan,
he continued to be laboriously persuasive.

22/5/86.

My idea is that you might bring them out to India for a year. . . .
We (excuse me dear) are so old that we may not see much of our
children or they of us, if we wait till our retirement.

Annette went forward with more confidence. Though she
asked for Henry’s opinion, she did not wait for it. She had no
doubt what he would say even when she first broached her plan.

19/5/86.

Fancy the scene when we all alight at the door of 17, Ballygunge
C.R. I do not wish you to order any furniture. Please leave all that
to me. (I conclude that you will approve of my scheme you see.)

Two days after her first inspiration Annette wrote that she
would bring out all the children, unless Henry forbade. Five
days later, before she had heard from Henry, she telegraphed,
as she said, two pieces of good news to cheer him :

Operation well over. Children accompany me.

Henry answered:

Delighted approve two teeth.

Letty, now grown to critical 9, thought that Annette’s
telegram could have been shortened by a word to “Children
Coming,” but Annette thought that Letty’s alternative might
be misleading. In. happy married life, as she admitted to Henry
with wifely impropriety, children are always on the way; she
reassured him that only the three he knew of would be accom¬
panying her from England.

280

dignt

The Family is United

IjW •‘‘two teeth” of Henry’s telegram were Herman’s,
wliich Bogmonia demanded and received a bakshish. The deli b
and approval were for the coming of the children rather than
for the operation. Henry did not altogether believe in “your
Dr. Woakes.” He did not think that indefatigable gentleman
should be allowed to operate without a consultation; Annette
had promised to ask for a consultation but she forgot the promise
and Mr. Woakes had his way. He caused great pain which
Annette bore with her usual fortitude. Whether or not the
operation prevented some major evil, it did not make any
improvement in Annette’s hearing. In 1884 she had said how
hard it was for the darlings to seek an audience with their mother.
By 1886 she was beginning to find it difficult to hear what they
said; in Calcutta in February of that year at a party she had felt
her deafness extremely.

One of the decisive factors in Annette’s decision—it was her
decision ratified by Henry—was Letty.

19/5/86.

Letty does want her mother! She is a darling but she has sad moods
as tonight when she told me she was afraid something was going to
happen. . . . I see she cannot speak or think of my going without
tears. . . .

21/5/86.

Letty has been terribly excited tonight full of terrors about a ghost.
... I know the agonies of childish terrors with no modier. She says
she can tell me everything. When I was her age I used to go creeping
in the night to my father’s bed. He was very good to me.

Just before this, in a visit to the dentist, Annette had renewed
in her daughter another of her own childish experiences, recorded
in her earliest letter from her father.

s/s/ 86 -

Yesterday I took Letty to Mr. Tomes and she went pale as paper
and did not have her teeth out. Mr. T. scolded her and told her to
go out of the room. ... He thinks that shame will take her back in
a better frame of mind next time. I told her the story of my own
failure at her age and I am wondering if she has the virtue as well as
the failing of her mother and whether, as she refused to have the
tooth out, she will now go of her own accord to have it done.

281

miSTffy,

India Called Them
letermination cf the children to be with their mothe

__ in factor in the great decision for reunion in India,
obscure working of general economic forces was an assisting
cause. When Henry first went to India in 1858 the rupee was
worth 2/- and it was hardly less when Annette went there in
1872: at 2/- to the rupee Henry’s Calcutta salary of 2,200 rupees
a month would have represented £2,640 a year in England.
But the rupee was based on silver and the £ on gold; the
depreciation of silver in terms of gold which began in the
’seventies changed disastrously the value of their income for
those in India who had to make payments in England. By 1886,
the rupee was worth not 2/- but 1/6 and the fall continued. At
one time it was worth little more than 1/-; finally, after Henry
and Annette had left India for good, it was established at 1/4.
In 1886, therefore, Henry’s Calcutta salary represented not
£2,640 but under £2,000; every pound that he spent on schooling
in England cost him not 10 rupees but 13^ rupees. But the salary
had still its full value in India; the economic argument
reinforced the human argument for uniting the family in

Calcutta.

The decision to reunite the family was taken in May 1886.
The actual reunion was postponed. Annette had to go through
a long and painful course of treatment, including an operation,
on nose and ears. The children’s journey to India could not be
undertaken before the cold weadier began. The interval she
spent mainly in London to be within reach of Mr. Woakes, with
her stepmother’s house, 28, Regent’s Park Road, as her normal

base. .

Mr. Woakes, next to the children, became her principal

occupation. A subsidiary occupation was Akbar. And this
proved at times a penance equal to Mr. Woakes. Annette found
that much more was involved dtan a simple translation from
German into English of what had been written by die Count of
Noer. The Count had died with his work unfinished As he lay
dying, he had cried, “Oh my book, my poor book! , his wife,
the Countess, had answered: “Be at ease! I promise you I will
have it published.” To redeem this promise she had employed
a Dr. Buchwald to finish the work; Annette came to think very
badly of Dr. Buchwald. “Akbar,” she wrote in May, “is provok-

282

WIN ISTffy,

The Family is United

a degree ... I would not have undertaken it
there would be so many errors.”
little later:

I have roughly finished the chapter on “Akbar and his Court” and
am in despair. I will make a list of the errors I have found.

Two months later, in July:

I find my visit to England rather penitential than otherwise. The
doctor is a dreadful nuisance—still it has to be got through. Then
Akbar seems interminable and Buchwald is disheartening to a degree.

With all this, Annette found time for many outings. She
made excursions with the children to Epping Forest, to die
Turners house near Stockport, and to Noer in Schleswig-
Holstein. She made a solitary pilgrimage to Scotland and in an
incredibly short space of time saw practically all Henry’s
relations. She went to Jemima’s old home at Torryburn and
settled what to do about the possessions which Henry had
inherited from Jemima, lying diere in packing-cases.

9/8/86.

I took a magnificent resolution—to despatch them as they are to
India and so save a packing.

On the way up to Scotland, at York, she not merely engaged
a governess, as related below, but saw the parents-in-law of her
i^lf-sister Kate. She renewed contact with innumerable friends.
Her energy was inexhaustible.

At York, spending some Sunday hours quietly in the Minster,
s le even, in Henry s best vein, found time for self-criticism:

I thought over many points of conduct in which I have been
■wrong and I wondered how I could so often have given pain, rather
than give up what seemed intellectually right. Perhaps I do not think
enough about feelings in others. I know that I value some qualities
niore than tender-heartedness.

Theie has come over me a terror of being what I so dislike in Fanny.

I ieel a despair lest I should be like hei without knowing.

With this sister Fanny, Annette’s relations were at the moment
emerging from winter to a slow and very uncertain spring,
amcs Mowatt, two years before, had insisted on resigning

283

WNlStyy

Itidia Called Them

of Annette’s marriage settlement,
needless expense. But now there came
beginning of a reconciliation.

28, Regent’s Park Road, 20/6/86.

The stately approach to a meeting with Fanny Mowatt goes on like
a siege by regular steps. On Monday fortnight a card brought by a
servant from her. A week later a note of acknowledgement from me.
Then a note from her. A week later a call from Osmond and on the
same day the gift of Hennan’s photograph to him and his house in
general which called forth the letter I enclose. I shall not call first
but I fear there is one fact clear from this long delay that, however
much I may wish to heal die sore, we are not missing one another s
society.

The fresh sore of this particular season was a dispute about
Stourbridge furniture between Fanny and Mrs. Akroyd. Into
this Annette did her best to refuse to be drawn, but she could not
escape altogether, and die furniture dispute led to other dis¬
agreements. Her diary records laconically “painful scene in a cab
on my introducing the question of my seeing the Akroyd account
book.” Henry got many pages of detailed record of this affair.

26/9/86.

I am just sick of this discussion about furniture. ... I refuse to
have Mrs. A. made uncomfortable by my means. ... I am ready to
sweep into Lethe—have done so—all I may have disliked in hei
actions. Things were too strong. Even if not, many years have passed
and time is merciful. Besides I am indebted to her for much kindness
and she is 68 and is my father’s widow and the questions at issue are
trumpery. ... I am sure I have said all this before and that you have
approved but I want you to approve again.

But not all Annette’s relations with Fanny were contentious.
Every now and again she saw Fanny and James, not about
furniture, but for friendship. One such occasion was just after
James had stood unsuccessfully for Parliament in the Home
Rule election of 1886.

James was a Liberal—he had feasted Henry once at the
Reform Club—who went over with Chamberlain. On the day
that the Home Rule Bill was defeated he gave a day’s wages to
each of the fifty workmen who were building his new house on

284

The Family is United

lid, and celebrated the occasion with a bonfire. H
^pend £500 in fighting a Home Ruler at Carmari
as defeated, of course. “I would rather have had James 5
£500,” wrote Henry, “than his 2,177 votes. 55 And Annette did
not agree with James 5 politics. Ultimately she went over wholly
to the Conservatives, but at this stage she agreed widi Gladstone:
“I cannot think why Chamberlain is so pernickety. 55

Annette’s main interest was not in politics or relations or
friends, but in her trio of children, aged now 9, 7 plus and 6
minus. It is to be hoped that Henry was as much interested, for
he was doomed to hear a great deal about them. Annette wrote
to him interminable screeds about the darlings—their health and
behaviour, their religious opinions and speculations as to the
origin of the world, their shopping and their visits to the Zoo,
their occasional misfortunes. Willie fell and cut himself rather
badly one day while running full speed down Primrose Hill to
some remote objective; as Annette wrote, he himself volunteered
the explanation:

Willie is the least practical of the three in sense of observation—
that is, he is so taken up with what he is thinking of that, as he himself
thoughtfully remarked one day when he tumbled, he cannot think
of two things at once.

Above all, Annette wrote about the cleverness of the children
and the problem of filling their minds with education:

5 / 5 / 86 -

Letty is reading a translation of Virgil —Dryden’s. She found it
hex self and says she likes it. Miss Lewin says that they are real!}’
clever children. She told me a tale of Sonnie. He had been away from
the geography lessons for some time with a cold and had got behind.
She said on his rejoining that he would have to miss some part oi
the book in consequence as he would not be able to make it up.
“May I take the book upstairs ?” Next day he appeared with all
learned. She says that the geography boys say, “Oh! Willie doesn’t
count,” because he is so much quicker than the others. ... I think
Fraulein has done extremely well with hem. Tutu reads extremely
well with the boldest attack on German pronunciation. . . . She is
fusing herself by copying a poem from a German book. Willie is
studying a ditto, and Letty has her Dryden. Tutu is now declaiming
what she has written.

285

India Called Them

J§L

swallowing Dryden “with great gulps” LettyJ
4 d a Don Quixote illustrated by Dore. Willie partly
:ollowed her there, and partly diverged to arithmetic. “Oh that
dear little L.C.M.”—so he came in shouting with ravishment
once to his mother and had to explain that his love was the
Least Common Multiple. Forty years on, the same Willie, on
the platform of a London Underground station, heard a similar
avowal of passion in another field of studies. “Oh, I do love
Quasi-Rent,” cried an ardent economist maiden to her swain as,
all unknowingly, she passed the Director of die London School
of Economics and Political Science.

The children were growing beyond Fraulein Emma Vogel for
anydiing but German, and that they spoke and wrote already
as fluently as English. Annette extemporized governesses for
them and as a rule with good results. Of one Miss Baylee, who
taught them Latin during an excursion to Epping Forest,
Annette recorded that she “is another illustration of the folly of
taking more than reasonable pains about people to serve one.
She was the first applicant and having good chits I took her and
so far she is perfectly satisfactory.” Annette even diought of
taking this particular governess out to India, but she proved to
have missionary tendencies and so would not do for Henry’s
children. “It would be impossible for her as a resident governess
not to wish to teach her creed to the children.”

So later, hearing of a governess at York, Annette, on her way
to see Henry’s relations in Scotland, stopped off at York and
saw and engaged her. Miss Close also had risks in Henry’s eyes,
for she was young and pretty. He warned Annette:

3/9/86.

You are a courageous woman bringing a young and pretty
governess to India, but I have full faith in all you do.

Annette had faith in herself and also, in spite of past disappoint¬
ments, in Miss Close:

29/9/86.

Women are not all like some we have known and if this young lady
should engage herself I would arrange for her to see her fiance and
the worst that could happen would be a long engagement under my
chaperonage. She will not easily make acquaintances, except through
me, please remember!

286

The Family is United

mness of Miss Close’s behaviour and the streng
te’s chaperonage were never put to the test, for at the last
moment before sailing the young lady fell ill and had to be left
behind. Annette found herself with the educational problem still
to solve when she reached India. But she was not without help
in looking after the children. Another young lady not quite so
dangerous, “Hetty Dendy 28, staid and handsome,” coming
from a family of Unitarian friends of Annette’s asked to be
allowed to go with her, and did so. Annette never lacked for
friends.

While Annette was wrestling with Mr. Woakes, Akbar, and
the problems of education in England, the official fate of Henry
was being decided in India. The year 1886 saw the practical
ending, after twenty-eight years’ service, of his hopes of pro¬
motion to the High Court. Two appointments announced in
February involved passing him over in favour of much junior
men. Henry, in Annette’s words, having according to his wont,
“let the matter ‘wobble’ in the right place for some time and
perhaps stirred to it by the advice of several friends,” at first
tried to see or write to the retiring Chief Justice, Sir Richard
Garth, but the latter declined to enter into any discussion. He
then had an interview with the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal,
Sir Rivers Thompson, and had what Annette in her record of
the proceedings described as a surprising conversation. “H.B.
who had gone to hear about his own delinquencies heard only
what may be called a gossip,” about the oddities or misbehaviour
of others; the Lieutenant-Governor was obviously anxious to
talk about everything rather than about what was wrong with
Henry. So, taking his time, Henry composed a letter of protest
to the Lieutenant-Governor and asked for it to be forwarded to
the Viceroy. The letter of protest went on April 5th and the
Government’s answer was dated July 5th. Henry, in writing to
Annette in England, had forecast the time with exactness.
Allowing a month to get round each of the three angles of
Government—Simla, Darjeeling, Calcutta—he gave three months
for a reply.

The letter of protest was a moderate reasoned statement by
Henry of his sendees and of the absence of any complaint against
him. It was typical Henry in two respects: of literary allusion and

287 k*

India Called Them

attitude. Henry compared the Privy Council
H ipported him and overruled the High Court on
^ ilpaiguri Succession case to the Greek Amphictyonic Council,
introducing this topic by a quotation from Matthew Arnold.
In a concluding paragraph Henry declared that if a native had
been appointed he would not have said a word:

I am one of those who would like to see more natives in the
High Court and who would have rejoiced if one of that hard¬
working and meritorious class of men, the Subordinate Judges,
had been appointed. But I do not think I should keep silent when
a junior member of my own service is promoted so much out of
his turn.

Annette, when she saw this, commented: “Probably the last
paragraph is not politic but it is true and it is truly Beveridgian.”

The answer from the Government of India, signed by Sir
Anthony McDonnell with whom Henry remained always on
terms of friendship, was what might have been expected.

I am to say that in selecting officers to fill the responsible
position of Judges of the Calcutta High Court, the Government
of India is guided solely by public considerations, and the
Governor-General in Council cannot admit that Mr. Beveridge
has any valid ground for complaint in the matter. I am to request
that with the permission of His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor,
Mr. Beveridge may be informed accordingly.

Henry’s reaction —and Annette’s—were also what might have
been foretold. Henry took the rejection of his protest with
complete philosophy. His first letter to Annette after receipt of
the Government’s reply did not mention the reply but was lull
of Annette.

24/7/86.

I am very sorry for you with all your troubles, your strychnine
poisoning, your Dr. Woakes and your Akbar. But patience, my dear,
will carry us through it all and we shall meet at last and be happy. I
count the days and drag on with a broken wing until I see you again.

. . . The candle shade has just arrived. You take too much thought
about me, my darling. Many thanks, I will use it, but I do not get
up now before day-light.

The next tetter did mention die reply, and a later one contained

288

The Family is United

rcastic references to its claim of “public considerat
/sole guide to some of the appointments made in the past.
Jut Henry’s mind was seldom in that key:

§L

29/7/86.

I hope that the G.G’s reply won’t cast you down and indeed I am
sure that it will not. It has affected me very little. The Bengalees have
a word called biroherenal or the fire of separation to express the
feelings of a wife when separated from her husband. I think I feel that
at being separated from my wife and we have that noble Virgilian
line: Superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est. I am not sure of the order
of the words. . . .

Why is it that I miss you so much more diis time than in 1884?
Is it that I got to love you more at Faridpur and diat every year
makes me more and more unwilling to be without you?

Annette s answer came from Noer in Schleswig-Holstein on
August 23rd.

My dear Love

If I could think of any new name for you in which I could put more
love I would do so. I have just had your letters of July 29th and through
some admirable promptitude of Grindlay’s I have them here on
Monday.

You miss me more than in 1884! I think it is because of our intimate
life in Faridpur. Then when we were alone you could see and I could
show the love which had been growing stronger under the children’s
shadow. I would say too, if I could see you, something about a hope
I have that I have a truer view of you and so you can love me more
because I love you more. I could not have thought in 1884 that I
could love you more but I now know it.

There is one thing I will say if you will let me and not be vexed.
I could I beiieve never again set myself in such public opposition to
you as once I did. I do not say I was wrong, because it is not exactly
that I feel, but that I could not do it again.

1 he G.G.’s letter certainly does not depress me. It is much what I
anticipated. ... I do not feel anything about it—it seems not to
touch me. You are what you are, and I know what that is and just
now I am only longing you were here to enjoy with me what I really
owe to you for finding me Noer and Akbar.

So the Governor-General was put in his small place in Henry
and Annette’s scheme of things. So ended Henry’s hopes of

289

MIN/Sr^

India Called Them

to the top of his profession, that last step and rounl
of his career, on which two years before from England
Annette had laid such stress, and which would have eased greatly
her problems, both of finance and of companionship. The High
Court, in addition to dignity, would have meant more pay and
longer holidays. Henry was to end his service seven years later
in the same rank of District and Sessions Judge as that to which
he had been appointed eleven years before, at the time when he
married Annette.

“I shall always be thought an unsafe man,” he had written to
her then. And he did not increase his reputation for safety by
what he now wrote on the trial and execution of Nanda Kumar
in the time of Warren Hastings. This was an ancient controversy,
but it roused racial feelings. Henry’s attack on the justice of the
condemnation, published in two articles in the Calcutta Review
in January and April 1886, drew a vigorous reply from Sir James
Fitzjames Stephen. Henry, undeterred, proceeded to make his
articles into his second book published in 1886 on the Trial of
Nanda Kumar : A Narrative of a Judicial Murder . The book is
not easy reading, with the wood perhaps at times getting a little
lost in the trees. Exactly what Nanda Kumar did may well be
disputed. But the gist of the matter is that an Indian was not
only condemned but executed in India for a crime of forgery,
capital in England at that time but little more than a normal
practice of litigation in India, both at that time and long after.
This happened to him after he had become the enemy instead of
the friend of the Governor-General, Warren Hastings.

But Henry, though he had an instinct to swim upstream, did
not always want to be thought an unsafe man. Writing to Annette
about work that he was doing for the Royal Asiatic Society, he
disclaimed all desire to be a new broom there.

11/9/86.

Gradually I may get influence if I am thought to be a safe man.
You know I am not really unsafe, even as the driver of a dog-cart,
though I may not inspire confidence.

While Henry’s official future was being settled in India,
Annette had decided to visit Noer, in pursuance of her work on
Akbar. It seemed that a visit to see the Countess might help to

290

MINISr^

The Family is United
;s straight. And it would be a new experience: Annl

^^Jtways avid of experience. The Countess also had courage,
in inviting a total stranger of another nation with three children
and their governess to pay a visit with no fixed limits of time.
When Henry raised the question of cost of the journey, Annette
answered: “I must tell you dear that the journey will really be
less expensive than my coming alone and leaving Fraulein and
the children in lodgings. 55 The tickets both ways for the party
of five between London and Noer came to less than £14. So on
August 17th the whole five set out for Noer by way of Hamburg;
by September iotfuthey were back in London, coming by sea
all the way from Kiel.

Noer, though called a Schloss, was and is a large white house,
looking through woods and across fields on the sea about ten
miles north-west of Kiel.

20/8/86.

The grounds are entered by a simple gate—no lodge—and a
short drive brings one to the front of a long plain high-roofed white
house. The door flew open and out ran the Countess followed by her
daughters and a governess.

The rooms have no splendour—quite the reverse—but there is
every sign of a personal thoughtfulness which is indeed very touching
to me when I consider what our relations are. Two dear little cots
a low children’s table with a Noah’s Ark and three small chairs and
toys and miniature toilette arrangements—then when our luggage
had not come, three litde nightdresses with feeders which were all
laid in a drawer in readiness. Indeed she is a w r oman worth taking
pains over. . . .

2 &~ 2 9 / 8 / 86 -

This is an extraordinary house. It makes terrible creakings and
sounds of various descriptions. . . . We lock our doors to keep
ourselves from getting creepy! All the servants sleep under the living
rooms and the C. says that she has at times had them refuse to go
and shut the shutters at night. . . . She has a story of an apparition
of a man in the Count’s room three years before his death! and is
apparently convinced that there is some connection between the
occurrences. . . .

I like the Countess very much but she is not at all bookish as I
had expected. . . . She used to drive about with her husband in the
carnage we use and the Count used to shoot from the carriage—the

291

MIN/Sr^

India Called Them

<SL

having been trained to stand fire. . . . She paints, and
^ >w when the C. worked in the library and she in her room, they
used to be impelled to see how each was getting on and used to take
different ways and miss one another.

i he expedition to Schleswig-Holstein was a great success
horn the point of Annette’s children. They received an impression
of woodlands by the sea which made that scenery always seem
familiar to them; diey found friendly elder sisters in the Countess’
two daughters; they saw the great Viking boat at Kiel; Willie
began digging a canal some twenty years before the Kaiser
Wilhelm.

1 he expedition was a success also from the point of view of
Annette. Two professors were summoned to Noer to be given
a catalogue of errors. The revision of the Count’s work in German
by Dr. Buchwald was ended. The Countess retrieved the Count’s
MS. from him and stopped the printing. That, at least,
was Annette’s understanding. “Akbar will come through
now 7 that my hands are free.” “I think worse and worse of
Buchwald.”

Henry contrived to be both charitable to Buchwald and in
agreement with Annette:

27/9/86.

It is just possible that the Countess has not paid Buchwald enough.
• . . She should have looked on the book as her husband’s child and
have provided for it. Alas! why did he not marry a bookish woman ?
But indeed such are rare in Germany. We two shall go quietly to
work, and make a good book of it. It is now our child. And we will
say as little as possible about Buchwald, who perhaps is a struggling
literateur and badly paid.

Only from Emma Vogel’s point of view was the Noer party
a misfortune. She proved to be the poorest of sailors. Annette
found h er useless on the way to Hamburg and worse than that
on the way back from Kiel. She decided there and then that
! raulein should not come to India; after all, it would be possible
10 find suitable Frauleins there. This was a hope which Annette
was driven in India to abandon.

As the time for meeting again drew near, the exchange between
England and India grew more loving.

292

misTfy

The Family is United

5/8/86, from Epping For^

dearest—bum this up and I will tell you that I hate the hemis¬
phere between us, that I love you better every month, that I think
myself blessed amQng women to be your wife. . . .

Henry declined to burn this letter. “No, no, I like it too much,”
he said, and answered:

11/9/86, from Ballygunge.

My dearest,

I am not surprised that Dr. Woakes admires you. So do I and many
people besides. ....

I should like to have married you when I first came out. Why did
we not meet ? I should have had so many years of happiness with
you. . . .

I am getting the house ready for you, e.g. I have put some water-
lilies in the tank.

12/9/86.

My dearest darling,

I have a holiday today owing to Mr. Stevens having kindly pointed
out to me that I am allowed a day’s joining time in order to make the
descent from the upper to the lower story of the court house with
proper judicial gravity. ... I think I shall employ it in writing, no
in printing a Beveridgian letter to the light of my soul. I see I am
smudging badly but I cannot help it. It is a fit type for a mourning
husband and he is a weeping one, for the tears of perspiration are
flowing from my brow. . . .

This last letter was one of Henry’s first efforts on the typewriter
— a machine which, like all other machines, defeated Henry more
often than he mastered it. When lie bought a tricycle, as he did
about this time, he “made a dreadful mess of it at first, went
backwards instead of forwards.” When Annette sent him an eye¬
glass with a special attachment, he thanked her but said lie had
not yet mastered its use. The typewriter was constantly in the
doctor’s hands. The one thing to be said for it was that the
children found his typed letters on balance easier to read than
his written ones. Annette sometimes found them too easy to
read even from a distance—too public in their declarations of his
love.

There were, of course, differences of opinion between them.

293

India Called Them

/Henry said that he had been making good resolm^^
limself, Annette wished to know please “what my husband
done that he needs good resolutions made over him ?”

I am perfectly contented with him when his hair is parted and his
frock coat buttoned underneath and his locks shorn and I shall
approve of no resolutions which change him.

There was naturally an argument about how Annette should
travel out. Henry loved planning journeys for others. He thought
not unreasonably that, with her tail of children and governesses,
Annette would do best to board a ship in England and stay on
it without changing till she reached Calcutta. Annette had other
views. She was a born traveller but hated a long sea voyage.
She exploded Henry’s fallacy that the sea was good for her:

28/7/86.

Foolish as I am in many ways there are some in which I am open
to experience and this is one. I cannot call to mind any voyage I ever
made which did not leave me worse than I was at starting.

On the other hand, she did not mind getting into and out of
trains, however many children she had with her, and she enjoyed
turning journeys into sight-seeing tours. At one time she thought
of travelling out to India by way of Schleswig-Holstein, taking
train from there across Europe to Genoa or Marseilles with all
her belongings. In the end she threw in the journey to and from
Noer with all her retinue as an extra. She went there and back
and started afresh from London. But she insisted on Genoa and
the economical Rubattino Line for the journey out. She did
not go even to Genoa direct; she stopped off at Lucerne for a
night and day of sight-seeing. Henry doubted if the Rubattino
would be clean enough for Annette, or the stewards sufficiently
respectful. But after argument he submitted:

11/9/86.

I am sorry that I hurt you by anything I said, but am glad that you
1 ave told me. You know that I never mean to do so, but when one
follows one’s own way and very rightly too, he or she must expect
to be judged, and even sometimes to be disapproved of. I have no
doubt that your Rubattino expedition will be a success. I have full
confidence in your powers of managing. . . .

294

The Family is United

Idence was justified. Annette triumphed over
-stravaiged over Europe with her retinue; crossed tlie'sea'
from Genoa to Bombay; crossed India by train, stopping off at
Bankipur (one episode of this was a wholly unexpected change
at midnight at Allahabad); in the last week of November threw
herself and the children into Henry’s arms in Calcutta; and
regained her baby Herman.

It was a great occasion. The family of six was for the first time
together. Reunion reached its climax a few weeks later, when
on Annette’s 44th birthday Henry gave her a present of diamond
earrings, when the elder children each gave something of their
own work, when the baby, having been upset by an unexpected
change of cow, grew all right by the evening.

2 95

MiN/sr^

Out dear children are , I am thankful to say ? not juvenile

Mills.

Annette from Arrah to Henry in Calcutta.

February 2, 1887.

Why make a Moloch of India more complete than she is?
Do we not have to suffer for her as it is ? And why should
we bear a heavier cross than we do ? Our separations are
expiations enough for holding the country.

Annette from Darjeeling to Henry in Calcutta,

May 8, 1888.

11 has just struck me why I feel so exhilarated by our rides:
I f or S et m y deafness—it is no impediment to efficiency and
1 am cheered to a most hoping degree.

Annette from Darjeeling to Henry in Calcutta.

June 26, 1888.

We must go on working at our separate vocations.

Henry from Calcutta to Annette in Darjeeling,

April 29, 1889.

1 have been long sitting with Dr. Cobb and going through
that cruel record of Hermans illness.

Annette from Darjeeling to Henry in Calcutta,
September 14, 1889.

It would seem that Willie has got that horrid remittent
fever. Everybody tells me it is time he should go home.

Henry from Calcutta to Annette in Darjeeling,
November 4, 1889.

Chapter XVI

LAST ROUNDS WITH INDIA

I N November 1886 Henry and Annette and their four
children were for die first time togedier; they spread out
joyfully into the Ballygunge house, widi the old Zenana as
nursery quarters; diey laid die great earring-tobacco con¬
troversy to glorious rest. But India had another trick up her
sleeve.

The new baby Herman, left in India to keep Henry company
when Annette went to see the elder children in England, was a
high-spirited, energetic, forward creature. As Annette had written
about him in his fourth month to die trio, before she left
him, Herman was very ambitious. She went on to quote the ayah
Bogmonia.

18/1/86.

Herman has always his fingers in his moudi because he is Blinking
of cutting some teeth. It is very early and when I asked Bogmonia
why her baby was beginning so early to think about teeth, she said
that there never was such a child, that he wanted to sit up when he
was a mondi old and to stand when he was three months old, and so,
of course, he would cut his teeth too soon.

To Annette in England, Henry wrote about her baby when
he was just short of a year.

27/9/86.

I am longing for you to see your Herman. He is so jolly. His great
delignt is to lean against a morah and so be pulled gently from room
to room. His great ambition is to be a man standing widi his eyes
erect to heaven. When the ayah sings to him, he claps his little hands
to the tune of Tai-Tai, Mama, Bari jail He is very fond of the
khansamah and makes signs to him all the time of breakfast and
dinner. . . . He says lao apparently when he wants something brought
to him.

Of course die baby had his childish upsets of teediing, colic,
and occasional fever. And at one stage Henry expressed to Annette
the apprehension that Herman was an unduly excitable, resdess

297

MIN IST/f

India Called Them

the ayah says he sleeps badly.” To which Anile
ered with calming common sense. “Nurses,” she said,
“always talk like that, and magnify the restlessness of the night;
if he sleeps by day, that will be well enough.”

All was well when Annette met her baby again. And on the
last day of November, just short of 14 months, Herman achieved
his first great ambition and took his first unassisted steps alone.
Three weeks later the blow fell.

Ballygunge was a feverish place. On arrival in November
Annette had found nearly all the servants down with fever. A
week after the great celebration of Annette’s birthday and the ear¬
rings, the baby was taken seriously ill. He had had some fever
before then, but now his temperature mounted to critical heights.
When for a moment the fever relaxed its grip, Annette rushed
him away twelve hours by train to a non-malarial district and to
a trusted doctor in Arrah near Bankipur. There the illness took
a new turn, with bronchitis, unconsciousness for nearly ten days,
paralysis for about as long, and when the paralysis passed a
constant snatching of the baby’s hand at the base of his skull as
at some discomfort.

The doctor described it as a case without precedent. It was,
as Annette wrote afterwards, a terrible illness to watch and she
watched it all. She stayed by Herman day and night, with the
bearer Ram Yad (“very useful and very managing with Herman”)
and widi the ayah Bogmonia who vowed to give a feast to holy
men when her baby should be well again. For many days there
seemed no chance of this. But after a month hope came creeping

back.

“You can guess how thankful I am feeling,” wrote Annette
to Henry on January 19th, “that there is hope we may be spared
the anguish I have dreaded almost to this day. ... He must
have gone if care had failed him and all the luxuries your work
has given him.” Four days later, “he still knows none of us,
and his right arm is still powerless. . . . One has to look back
to what he was some weeks ago in order to keep up hope and
be cheerful and calm.” But Herman, in Annette’s words, had
the stuff of a staying man in him; in another three days “he has
a charming colour. ... I think Bogmonia will feed her faquirs
yet and we shall all be happy together.”

298

MIN/Sr^

Last Rounds With India

fegmonia is sitting looking at him with a contented face,
s round to me now and again as though she exulted in the poor
little fighter’s victory. It is a victory to have come even so far. If he
knows you, our cup of rejoicing will be full.

Thereafter there was nothing but progress to report. At the
beginning of February, Annette wrote that Herman was not so
much an invalid as our dear baby come back to us. On February
7th she felt able to leave him to join Henry on his birthday in
Calcutta. On February 12th she recorded Herman in her diary
as “well.” She had kept life in her youngest born.

Herman’s illness caused a change of plans as to the hill station
to which the children should go in the hot weather. Henry and
Annette had not liked the idea of Darjeeling, perhaps because
it was a seat of the Bengal Government. Annette had enjoyed
Mussoorie five years before and she had thought of going back
there. Now, at the first dawn of hope for Herman’s life, for
Annette was always looking forward, she wrote from Arrah to
Henry:

19/1/87.

I want to ask you something, dear, now that hope has sprung up
again for our darling. ... I think you will understand that Herman’s
illness will have made my ideas change , . . and the result is that I
want to have the children nearer than Mussoorie. It is a terrible journey
and I could not be easy so far from Jderman. Neither do I wish to
leave you alone. So I have come to the conclusion that we must put
personal likings out of the question and go to Darjeeling. . . .
We may like it better than we anticipate. We must have a house
I think and a large and comfortable one where good fires can be
kept.

Henry, of course, fell in with this. By the building of railways
the journey to Darjeeling had been improved immeasurably,
since Annette had gone there with her first baby ten years before
and had dragged reluctant Henry after her. Then from Rangpur
in northern Bengal, Annette, ringing the changes between palki
and tonga, had taken all but five days to Darjeeling. Now in
March 1887 the whole transit from Calcutta could be accom¬
plished in twenty-seven hours. But it was hardly a luxury ride

2 99

India Called Them

hette, her four children, her friend-companion
and the Fraulein of the moment— one Schuch—picke
up in Calcutta. It meant a night journey without sleepers;
Annette lay on a mattress on the floor and this was convenient,
as the children sleeping on the seats from time to time rolled
off on to her rather than on to the floor. It meant breaking the
journey for a river ferry by night. It meant another early morning
change of trains at the foot of the hills into the narrow gauge
mountain railway, from Siliguri to Darjeeling, fifty miles away
and 7,000 feet above. “It is a wonderful journey,” reported
Annette to Henry, “but to enjoy it one should not have travelled
all the previous night.”

Annette’s management triumphed over all troubles, including
the temporary defection of the favourite ayah Bogmonia and
the failure of her boxes to arrive for nearly a week. The Calcutta
khansamah Ali Jan had been sent on ahead and he met Annette
at the door of the furnished house she had taken, “widi a nice
ayah and a nice cow.” Bogmonia appeared later but presented a
problem. She was married to a sweeper, whom, for good reasons,
Annette refused to employ. But she agreed to pay the sweeper’s
fare to Darjeeling and let him live widi Bogmonia in die com¬
pound and get a job elsewhere. He will do better, said Annette,
if he has to depend on his own exertions rather than on his
mistress’ affection for his wife.

Thus the family settled down for three years to their life
together in India—or as much together as India could make it.
For two cold weathers, about four months each, they were
united in Calcutta, once in the Ballygunge house, later, in what
seemed more salubrious, a house rejoicing in the name Dilkusha
(Heart’s Delight) in Alipur. For the rest of the year the children,
with attendants, were in Darjeeling, first in furnished “Woodbine
Villa,” near the Lieutenant-Governor’s residence “The Shrub¬
bery,” then in a leased house with dieir own furniture, “Craig-
mount.” This house had the distinction of being at that time
almost the only two-storev house in Darjeeling; it stood on
a precipitous hillside and one of die more exciting incidents
of a rainy season there to the children was when the stables of
the house all but disappeared in a landslip.

All Darjeeling lay dominated by the great Himalayan snows,

300

WNtSTfty

Last Rounds With India

,§L

Janchinjunga as their chief some fifty miles away.
in first saw the snow r s unexpectedly one morning at the
gate of “The Shrubbery” when they had walked out to post a
letter. They used to say that thereafter they could at any moment
in their lives have found die way back to the precise scene of this
unforgettable sight.

Annette had spent 1886 mainly away from Henry with , the
children. This year, 1887, she contrived to be almost wholly
with Henry. After seeing die children established at “Woodbine
Villa,” under the staid Hetty Dendy and Fraulein Scliuch, she
returned alone to Calcutta and was there more than four mondis,
working hard at Akbar and the garden, giving and going
to parties; one day she recorded with three exclamations,
“went on a tricycle! ! !” Then at the end of July Henry took
privilege leave, and the two of them went together to Dar¬
jeeling.

There were diree happy months spent all together in the hills
and the family indulged their taste for expedidons. They went
down to the valley of the Runjit river 5,000 feet below Darjeeling,
and tried the giddy excitements of the swinging Cane Bridge
across the river; this was a three days’ jaunt. They went up to
Senchal—the nearest height above Darjeeling from which Mount
Everest 100 miles away could be seen. One object of the climb
was to see the dawn on Kinchinjunga, and by Henry’s anxious
forethought they started so much in the middle of the night that
they reached the top of Senchal some half-hour before the dawn;
they felt colder than previously they had thought it possible to
be in India. When Henry’s leave was up and he returned to
Calcutta, Annette and the children were separated from him for
less than a month. They followed him down and were all together
for nearly five months in Ballygunge till the time came for
Annette to take the children to Darjeeling at the beginning of
April.

The last year’s plan of Annette’s return to Henry in Calcutta
could not be repeated in 1887. The staid handsome Hetty Dendy
had returned to England. As soon as they had reached Darjeeling,
Fraulein Schuch demanded to leave at a month’s'notice for
another post and in fact left in a fortnight.

Annette took this defection with philosophy.

301

MINIS;*,,

India Called Them

.really don’t care! I do not look for consideration and
est self-seeking to many less inconvenient faults. It is my in¬
ability to come and see you which vexes me most in her short
notice.

She extemporized a stop-gap teacher of German and besought
Henry’s help; if German governesses were not to be had, it
might be sufficient for the children to practise the language on a
German maid. Henry was most willing to help, but expressed a
poor opinion of this plan.

5/5/87-

I am ready to advertise for you, but I doubt the getting of a German
maid. The German women of the lower class in India are chiefly
women of loose character, I believe. . . . However I shall advertise
for you if you like. To save time you might telegraph to me. . . .
It is very hard that I have had no telegrams from you, and have had
no excuse for sending any.

Somewhere or other a German claiming to be a governess
was found, but she lasted only six weeks. Fraulein Schuch had
sprung a mine. Her successor, Fraulein Bucher, proved more a
trouble than a help and departed. Annette one day, after per¬
forming “the Herculean task from which with the best intentions
the bairns have always recoiled of putting their doll’s house tidy,”
went on to cleanse the Augean stable of the clothes almirah as
left by Fraulein. “It was in a state so just like her that I only
felt she was quite gone when I had set it right.”

Annette decided that the Indian market for Frauleins would
not repay further exploration. She sent an S O S to Halle-an-
der-Saale in Germany whither Emma Vogel had retired. Emma
Vogel came out and was replaced with acclamation in the bosom
of the family. Annette sometimes described the good Fraulein
as stupid and found her incapacity at sea a trial. But when Annette
was herself a few years later in the sickest misery of her life she
wrote to Henry:

29/10/90.

If I should be called on to leave my darlings before they are grown
up, will you do this for mo? Let Fr. Vogel remain in charge of them

302

Last Rounds With India

are well established in health and strength. Nothing cl
er devotion to me and to them and the affection she and
ren have for one another is most real.

To the children there never was any but one real Fraulein; all
the rest were bad-tasting imitations. The summoning of Emma
Vogel from Halle-an-der-Saale was fresh evidence of the rising
influence of the younger Beveridges in family council. They
had argued their way out to India to join their parents. Now
they dragged Emma Vogel after them.

It became clear that Henry and Annette, even with the family
in India, could not be much together. Henry’s conscience would
not allow him to take any liberties with his work. “I cannot take
casual leave without putting many people to great inconvenience
and so I do not intend to apply for it.” Once when he had
planned to come for a long week-end to Darjeeling, the pleaders
in a case before him, who had promised to get done by noon on
Friday, made such long speeches—and Henry allowed them—
that he could not come at all. On another occasion he reported a
conversation with the Lieutenant-Governor, who was in flight
to Darjeeling.

14/4/89.

The L.G. asked me if I was going up at Easter and I said I had
only two days. He replied that the H.C. Bench and Bar had more.
I have sessions and cannot extend my time. Do you know that I
dreamed last night that you lay in my arms? It would have been
very improper had you been there as I was in the verandah and as it
was moonlight.

Annette, on the other hand, could not extend her time from
the children. She spent on this occasion more than three-and-a-
quarter years in India. In that time the great reunion of all six
came down to two cold weathers together, about four months
each in 1887-88 at Ballygunge and 1889-90 at Alipur, and about
four months of Henry’s leave in Darjeeling. The cold weather
of 1886-87 as a time °f happiness together was destroyed by
Herman’s illness; that of 1889-90 by Willie’s illness. For most
of the time of the great reunion in India Henry and Annette
were apart, he alone in Calcutta, she in Darjeeling with the
children. As Henry wrote to her, even in India “you and I must
go on working at our separate vocations.”

303

MIN ISTfy

India Called Them

Wry’s work in Calcutta, or at least that which inte^
ost and of which he wrote most to Annette, consiste'
trying criminals.

29-30/6/88.

. . . We are trying six people for dacoity and murder. They are
said to have robbed an old blind man and to have throttled his wife
because she screamed out. . . .

The jury convicted all six dacoits yesterday though after the verdict
was given one juryman said that he found them not guilty.

3/7/88.

... I hope to finish my sessions today. Yesterday the jurymen
convicted two boatmen of flinging their manjhis overboard into a
river in the outer Sunderbunds with intent that he should drown or
be eaten by alligators or tigers. Fortunately a steamer rescued him
after he had lived for two days up a tree like another Robinson Crusoe.
They got five years each.

23/6/89.

It has been a very successfull sessions so far, the jury having con¬
victed in every case.

This view of the nature of success in sessions is perhaps un¬
expected, but it is in accord with Henry’s character. The most
tender-hearted of men, he was, as he said, hopelessly unsenti¬
mental about criminals and with Sir Henry Maine believed in
punishment. In the cases which came before him at Sessions, it
was clear often that some one or other had committed a brutal
crime. Unless that person could be discovered and convicted,
the sessions would be a failure. If someone was convicted beyond
reasonable doubt in every case, that would be success.

Henry’s recreations in Calcutta consisted mainly of enjoying
his garden and books; sending books and fruit to Annette;
pouring out his mind to her; doing kindnesses. He thought of
buying a horse and was weighed, finding that he would ride
about fifteen stone. He had a friend to chum with him, and was
exercised greatly about the extravagance of the friend’s daughters.
He concerned himself about the starting in life of the son of a
former civilian now dead; had the young man to stay with him;
was on tenterhooks as to whether he would pass his examinations;
finally lent him a substantial sum. This young man later became

304

MIN ISTff

Last Rounds With India

*uished civilian—Sir Walter Williamson. Long
had not only repaid Henry but, as die one return whi<
ingster he could make, had delighted Henry’s children by
presenting to diem his most cherished possession of a stamp
collection. This, in pleasant relations, was one of the most
fruitful of Henry’s exercises in compassion.

5 / 5 / 88 .

The mali is anxious diat you should send him or bring him some
orchids. The lawn is looking nice now. You will be amused to hear
that I am developing a taste for mooning about the grounds and for
visiting the stables. I am half angered with books and reading and
prefer to think or stroll.

Thoughts of you and the children always comfort me and I can
sing with King David.

I to the hills will lift mine eyes
From whence doth come mine aid.

22/5/89.

I am still busy reading my father’s History and like some of it well.

He is horrified at the opium trade. ... In concluding his remarks
on die Rohilla War, my father writes: “Until the distinctions between
right and wrong are abolished, there cannot be a successful vindication
of the Rohilla War.” So I diink my love for trenchant language is
inherited.

28/4/89.

I wish you could see our crotons now. . . .

I am going to send you another volume of Howell, that containing
the trials of Alice Lisle, Elizabeth Gaunt, the account of Monmouth’s
execution etc. Read poor Mrs. Gaunt’s last words. They burnt her—
the wretches.

10/7/88.

I have been reading Miss Thackeray’s Village on the Cliff—a
charming story but she takes more interest in natural scenery, and in
reflections than in her characters. I am reading Homer. The 6th book
is wonderfully beautiful. ... I am glad that you liked Johnson. . . .

Many thanks for die children’s letters. Willie’s preciseness is
delightful.

4/5/88.

. . . Did you see that a wretched young woman died at Kilburn
from eating twelve hot cross buns! had she done it for a wager? . . .
I hope soon to send the children some mangos. * . .

I know that you are sorry for me in my loneliness and indeed I

305

India Called Them

s^d to be without you and the children. But still I wouldL^^^
^ tere dian at the Club or in a flat or boarding house in Calcutta,
really enjoy the flowers and the crotons, the lawn etc. and I weary
of the company of people I don’t care about. Everything, thanks to
you, is so comfortable here—the writing room—the verandah—the
bedroom &c., I like the rose that the mali brings me in the morning,
the respectable cat asking for his milk, the coachman saying his
prayers in the garden, the letter from Darjeeling on my return from
Court.

“We must run glittering like a brook
In the open sunshine or we are unblessed,”
says Wordsworth. Heaven preserve us all from such a feeling.

5 / 6 / 88 .

Williamson has accepted the appointment in the Burma police and
goes off tomorrow. I lent him some money to buy a sword etc. So
there is one good thing settled, I think. It is satisfactory that he is
provided for.

1/7/88.

That is a delightful letter of Samuells. There are some nice people
in the world after all. Why then is the world not nicer than it is?

4/5/89-

Ogboume and I have been settling our account. He is easily pleased,
poor man, though much worried by his daughter’s extravagance in
dress. I suppose Mrs. O. looks upon it as the Govt, does the building
of war-ships, or Ram Chandra Chatterjee regards the paying of
Rs. 500 for going up in the Spencerian balloon.

The reference in the last letter is to one of the sensations of the
Calcutta season of 1888-89, when a balloonist came to give a
display of dropping by parachute. The Calcutta gas proved not
to be equal to the task of raising both balloon and parachute.
After one failure to go up at all Mr. Spencer, not wishing to
disappoint the spectators completely, lightened the balloon by
leaving the parachute behind and sailed off southwards not to
death but to descend in due course safely in the Sunderbunds,
balloon and all. The story of Ram Chandra Chatterjee is probably
apocryphal.

Once, in spite of what he and Annette had agreed in their
courtship, Henry went out and suffered something like a lecture.
And once he suffered from toothache. On each occasion he made

306

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^eristic comment. All of us have suffered from spea
-turned taps but few have thought of that descriptionTor"
All of us have suffered from toothache, without being
reminded of the last days of Socrates.

2/6/88.

Harrison did not say a word about Regulus or the Imperial race.
I suppose that was in his prepared speech . 1 Perhaps when he saw how
black most of the pupils were he hesitated to speak of the Imperial
race. Cotton described Harrison to me as having a “torrent of words”;
well it is not a torrent for they flow very gently or indeed rather
dribble. They come like water from a tap only partially turned on—
unending but not rapid or impressive. Colonel Pemeau whispered to
me that he was prolix, and I replied yes he speaks slowly because he
is speaking to the reporters and not to us.

10/7/88.

I have really enjoyed existence this afternoon. The feeling of relief
from pain is so intense and also that of deliverance from dread of the
coming night. The two last nights were terrible nights, and were
spent by me chiefly in walking up and down the verandah. Whenever
I lay down and tried to sleep the pain started again but I was glad
you were away, for die pain would have disturbed you. There was a
hole in the tooth taken out but Mr. Woods said that die trouble was
not there but at the root and so the stopping did me no good.

The pain and the relief made me think of Socrates putdng his feet
up on his charpoy die last day of his life and enjoying the pleasure
of not feeling the pressure of his chains. They were taken off the
morning of the last day. Socrates said it was strange how pain and
pleasure were combined and that it seemed to him as if God being
unable to abolish pain altogether had arranged that these extremes
should meet. . . .

Last night in my weary pacings up and down the verandah I often
heard a big fish jump in the tank. . . .

13/7/88.

I am afraid that you are not well and are bothered about governesses
etc. Well, always remember that the wisest thing in India and else-

1 1 he occasion was the distribution of prizes at La Martini&re, a college for students
of European extraction. The printed report of Sir Henry Harrison's address as given in
the Englishman of June 2, 1888, does make him rail upon the students to emulate the
spirit of Regulus and “never to forget that they belong to an imperial race/* The names
of some of the student prize-winners suggest that though they may have been European
they certainly were not British by race. Either the report was based on a copy of what
the speaker planned to say but in the end did not say—or Henry did not listen
throughout.

307

MiN/sr^

India Called Them,

*e is not to fret. It may be very foolish but I still feel hap^_

tted at the idea that I have got rid of my toothache and especially
that I had the sense to go to the dentist and that I had my tooth out
without anaesthetics and without howling. . . .

By the way if you survive me, as I hope you will, you might collect
my contributions to the C. R. and the J. A. B. etc. and publish them
as a volume of essays. That is, of course, if you think it would pay.
I think the three articles on Patna City and the Patna Massacre, that
on Rousseau, and the first on Warren Hastings might be worth
preserving.

Ihe occasion for reprinting Henry’s articles did not arise.
But die recording angel Annette gathered them all together from
first to last and bound them with her own articles in five volumes
of Beveridge Varia; sayings from each of those named by Henry
as possibly wordi preserving are used below to introduce the
Epilogue. 1 These articles were a small selection only of what
he wrote; Henry was always writing as well as reading.

Annette meanwhile in Darjeeling had a life filled by children
and the problem of finding them education; by guests and chums
for company and economy; by riding and expeditions; by such
reading as she could squeeze in. For education she was fortunate
in being able to draw on the masters of St. Paul’s school in
Darjeeling; Letty and Willie under personal tuition made a
flying start with Euclid and Algebra; with Fraulein Vogel and
an English governess there was no lack of lessons. One set of
friends or another shared Craigmount through nearly the whole
season of 1888. Without them the house for Annette would often
have seemed unprotected.

b ^ 1/7/88.

It is late. All are in bed. The chokidar syce sleeps the sleep of die
mentally unincumbered below and troubles himself not if many come
and go and we are all carried away. He is our guard but I don’t think
him so efficient as “Quiz” [the family mongrel].

Riding was an almost daily resource, though one which
Annette and the others enjoyed more than Willie, whose repeated
tumbles caused searching of heart in Calcutta as well as in
Darjeeling.

* See p. 37 -- Another important article not mentioned by Henry in July 1888,
See^p'*38i°below n was on the Administration of Justice in Bengal

308

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hardly make you understand (poor but most beloved ryot )
how we enjoy our rides. It has just struck me why I feel so exhilarated
by them: I forget my deafness—it is no impediment to efficiency and
i I am cheered to a most hoping degree. When we came home tonight
and found your fruit—the beautiful fruit waiting for us—and our
charming house.now doubly pleasant by its porch—and Herman’s
toys and the other things in the basket—we were all overcome with
gratitude to you—my dearest—for you give us all and it is your
labour only which causes us such uprising of thankfulness. . . .

Through all this loving interchange there ran one thread of
controversy—on church attendance. The dispute began soon
after Annette arrived in Calcutta, raged even during the height
of Herman’s illness, and reverberated long after. Annette was set
on sending the children to church on Sundays. Henry objected.
His side of the controversy is not fully represented in the surviv-
I ing correspondence; Annette had a way of not cherishing letters
that she did not like from Henry. But Annette’s letters were kept
by Henry with less selection. From these the line that he took
is clear. He argued that sending the children to church now
would be a confession of failure on their sceptical parents’ parts,
and a shifting of responsibility from the parents’ shoulders; in
an unguarded moment he cited his great exemplar John Stuart
Mill. Only four days after the first dawn of hope for Herman,

I Annette was writing from Arrah:

23/1/87.

I cannot discuss the question of church-going by letter. . . . You
do not see it as I do or you could not have made the remark about a
Hindu temple or a Mosque. Probably I was too tense to express
myself well. I had not expected you to object, because you let the
children go to service in Soudiport and were willing for Letty to go
on Christmas Day with Hetty. ... I w r ould like you to hear my
reasons and I have set my heart very much on getting your permission.

When Herman seemed sufficiently better to let Annette contem¬
plate return to Calcutta, she came back also to controversy.

7/2/87, from Arrah.

You are wrong in supposing that in wishing to send the children
to church, I wish to shift a responsibility from our shoulders. No

309

WNlSTff

India Called Them

going can compensate for want of moral training at hor
before never suggested this. I am considering the chile
appiness—die satisfaction of die emotional wants of youdi.

Mill is an unhappy example to have chosen to give me—his own
youth was arid and he felt it so; and surely his book on Theism is not
the reflection of a happy mind. . . . Our dear children are, I am
thankful to say, not juvenile Mills and I trust that at least in one
particular which I have heard you reprobate, they will not resemble
that intellectual monster when they grow up.

Annette had not forgotten the first letter which Henry wrote
to her after proposing marriage, with its eight pages on Mill and
Mrs. Taylor, though that was probably not the part of the letter
which had most held her attention at the time. Now she proceeded
widi an argument based on the severed family life.

I have no objection to their becoming professing Christians. How
should I have ? I see many professed Christians whose lives I admire
and the tone of whose mind is to me most admirable. Added to this
they have a happiness in their faith which I certainly lack.

I cannot see that to send the children to church is a confession of
failure. You and I were bred under religious influences. I for my part
owe a deep debt to these influences and I think them advantageous
for at least early years and do not know how we can make com¬
pensation for them and this especially in the severed family life we
lead. You and I may or may not be three months together with our
children. It is a practical necessity that they should be under influences
other than ours. Leaving them alone i.e. untaught on Sunday, with
some however innocent recreation, will not supply the void I would
supply by church-going. Suppose you arrange something to carry
them on through February, they leave you in March. How would you
propose to continue the teaching?

Of course, Annette won her point. In Calcutta the children
came to be taken regularly to Sunday service, usually in the
cathedral; in Darjeeling Annette found a Presbyterian chapel
which they enjoyed. Henry agreed that in the up-bringing of the
children the responsibility and therefore the decision were
Annette’s. She, on the other hand, played the game by him.
She did nothing to make her children members of any Church
and they did not become so. When, during the nearly fatal
illness of her son Willie at Darjeeling, a minister friend suggested

310

warn 4°

Herman Beveridge in July 1890

Last Rounds With India

precaution he should be baptized, Annette poli
the proposal. She never really expected any of h?
fen to die under her care.

24/11/89.

I said that baptism must be left for the boy’s future decision and
that you had been very generous to me about the religious education
of the children. I trust this is what you do not dislike me to state.

But the controversy about religion went on reverberating
throughout the time together in India. Long after the children’s
attendance at church on Sunday had become a settled practice,
Henry wrote to Annette who complained of not knowing his
inmost thoughts.

24/4/89.

I don’t think I have many reserves from you. I cannot follow you
in your seeking to lay hold once more on Christianity, after having on
one memorable occasion had to declare that you were not a Christian.
I feel that you are a little slipping away from me on this matter.

And a few days later he wrote Annette another letter which he
feared would give her pain.

29/4/89.

I am very sorry to have had to do this, and will only plead that
your previous letter hurt me a good deal. I shall say however that the
letter is the last of its kind that you will get from me. I have no wish
to send you thorns and will not continue the discussion.

Annette, after her wont, did not keep the painful letter. But
she did keep a charming letter which artful Henry addressed the
same day to the children and which was full of pleasant messages
for Annette and a story “rather for your mother than for you.”
These parents were finding it very convenient to have children.

There was a real difference of attitude on matters of religion
between the two. Henry, having been brought up in the Scottish
church, when he went right over to agnosticism, stayed there
firmly. Annette having been brought up a Unitarian had not so
far to go; in truth she moved very little. She called herself not
a Christian at marriage, to please Henry more than from con¬
viction; she salved her conscience once by quoting Gladstone as
authority for the view that Unitarians were not Christians.

311

India Called Them

Tver escaped the felt necessity of believing in
power for good. She felt this necessity more as
older. In the same letter in which she reported her rejection
of baptism for her sick son, she told Henry where she stood:

24/11/89.

This illness like every other trouble which has befallen me of recent
years has led me back to my faith in God in a very real manner, for
in the first days of my close watchfulness, I do not think I could have
done my duty to my boy—if I had not felt the near presence of help
and strength beyond my own. Fourteen days and nights, and no
worry, no undue strain, and no neglect! It was only a mind kept
calm and quiet by some spirit of peace that could have done it.

Henry and Annette were two people, not one; two minds
that never gave up their independence. They were two people
who, through all disagreements, never ceased to write love letters
to one another.

May 6th, 1888, from Calcutta.

My dear Love,

I had a great longing for you last night. I thought of our marriage,
of our stay at Serhampore, of our journey home, of our meeting at
Gauhati. ... Is it wrong that I should dwell with pleasure on your
sweetness to me at Gauhati ? You were just as good to me at Faridpur!
Then I thought dear that I loved you in every way, and I was so happy
with you and I prayed that we might never have any more quarrels
or say harsh words to one another. If only we got on together always
and thoroughly, I felt that I did not mind a rap about the High Court
or other external matters.

And the dear children too, if only they keep well and happy. Poor
Herman is retarded, but I hope he will be all right in a year or two.
Sometimes I feel that we could be so happy leaving it all and living
at home on pension, but reason tells me no, and I feel as if it would
be ungrateful to leave India so long as she will have me. . . .

Do you know that I sometimes think t|iat my highest duty was
not to have married again but devoted myself to India? And then I
ansv'er, Yes it might have been, but I was not strong enough for it.
Celibacy, says Robertson, is for angels or beasts. And I am sure that
if I had not had you, I would have drifted into something con¬
temptible. You have done me so much good in so many ways. I like
so much your lady-like manners, your neatness in everything, even
to the way in which you eat. ... I love you in every way. . . .

312

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Last Rounds With India

id you looked that day at the Victoria Station when I
tfa without you! And how happy we were at Keavil!

Annette knew well that teasing thoughts—of duty to India
and not marrying again—often passed pleasingly through Henry’s
mind. And she knew her answer.

, May 8th, 1888, from Darjeeling.

My dearest,

Your love letter was waiting for me when we reached home after
an afternoon on Lebong. It was very sweet to me, but I think your
notion of doing more service to India than you have done—if un¬
married is all wrong. How could you do the country better service
titan by working hard at doing justice? You could but have done one
thing you have not done; viz: spent otherwhere the money your
family has cost you—a very doubtful good. On die other hand you
would have left no renewal of your character and qualities to m ke
your place in die world. Besides why make a Moloch of India more
complete than she is? Do we not have to suffer for her as it is, and
why should we have to bear a heavier cross than we do ? Our separa¬
tions are expiations enough for holding the country.

There are things and classes in India which have brushed out all
my poetiy about her people. Still dear! if die sentiment still glows in
you I can appreciate it.

I am often heartsick to think of you alone and long to go down to
you for a few days. But I cannot as my house is.

like you I certainly hope for no sources of disagreement with
you—but as after any we may have had, I doubt if I could love you
better (though I tliink I have not always been wrong) I don’t attach
much importance to them.

I fancy no two persons ever agree entirely and nothing but hypo¬
crisy or weakness can make them seem to do so. I might have promoted
quietude by flattering you by pretended agreement in one or two
matters—but you would have been far less happy and confident of
me than when I play my cards on the table.

These love letters illustrate all the main problems for Henry
and Annette in these days of reunion.

/ felt that I did not mind a rap about the High Court. Henry
just at the time of the reunion had filled the cup of his offending
against established views by the evidence which he submitted to
a Commission sent from England to report on the Public Services
in India:

313

India Called Them

23/12/8OJLJ

iat I specially want to say is that, in my opinion, no settle¬
ment will be satisfactory which does not include the abolition of
the system of examinations in England for the Indian Civil
Service. ... It may be that this matter is not one with which
the Commission has been fully empowered to deal. But I am
encouraged to dwell upon it by observing that the Government
resolution of the 4th October required the Commission to devise
a scheme which is likely to be final, and which will do full justice
to the claims of natives of India. Now it seems to me clear that
finality can never be attained until the geographical monopoly,
as it has been called, of the present system has been done away
with. It is idle to say that the natives of India can and do go to
England to be examined. Only a few can do so, and if they are
successful, the expense and expatriation which they have been
subjected to hamper them in after life. We need only imagine die
case to be reversed, and that the rule was that appointments in
England were to be given on examinations in India, to see diat
the supposed remedy is utterly inadequate. It is hopeless to
attempt to conciliate by merely diminishing an invidious
distinction, without endrely abolishing it, as Sydney Smith
showed long ago in a famous passage of Peter Plymley’s letters.
The attempt reminds one of the Persian proverb quoted by
Badaoni, Kajdar, O Murez, hold the vessel aslant, but don’t let
its contents run out, or more briefly, upset but don’t spill. The
familiar line of Vergil Tros Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine agetur ,
is still the only expression befitting the ruler of diverse nations.
So long then as we have two sets of men working side by side
and doing precisely the same work, but on different rules of pay
and promotion, there will not cease to be heartburnings and
discontent, as well as needless expense to the State.

I have no wish to speak ill of the competition-system. It was
an immense improvement on the old rule of patronage, and is a
fine instance of England’s stately march, and of the manner in
which her concessions “broaden slowly down from precedent to
precedent.” But the system has had its day, and should give place
to another. India has now a sufficient supply of educated young
men within her borders, and need not import administrators,
except for special purposes. Act II of 1857 has borne fruit, and
has fulfilled the purposes set forth in its preamble.

It seems to me that the very fact that natives of India have been
able to pass the examinations at home is a reductio ad absnrdum

3*4

Last Rounds With India

system, for they who have so passed into the Civil Serv?
fable men but not a whit better in position, or abilities than
many of their brothers, and cousins, and fellowcaste men who
have stayed at home, and entered the uncovenanted service, or
become pleaders, or doctors. It is chiefly the accident of their
parents having more money, or more courage and fewer pre¬
judices than their neighbours which has placed them in the Civil
Service. Why should India pay unnecessarily high for their
services? It is absurd to suppose that two or three years of
residence in England, and of absence from India have so enhanced
their aptitude for Indian administration that they are worth
double their original value. It certainly seems to me that those
who wanted to keep natives out of the Civil Service, and for
that purpose lowered the age of admission were at least logical
in their procedure, for it is only on the supposition that the
interests of the empire require the Civil Sendee, with an insignifi¬
cant exception or two, to be composed of Englishmen, that the
competitive examination in England can be defended.

Henry can hardly have expected that giving evidence like this
in December 1886 in India would improve his prospects of
promotion. There were fresh appointments to the High Court
in this Darjeeling time, and Henry once more w'as passed over.

21/4/88, from Ballygunge.

You will see in the Englishman that Gordon and Rampini have
been appointed to officiate in the High Court. I heard about it on
Monday at Belvedere from Man Mohan Ghose and so I am not taken
by surprise. Gordon is I believe a good man, and Rampini is not I
suppose much amiss. And now let us to other subjects.

■ I met Allen this morning and he remarked that one reason Willie
could not ride was that he had not a proper saddle. . . .

23/4/88, from Ballygunge.

I went on my tricycle yesterday evening to Chatterji’s garden and
saw some beautiful cediums—some white and also crimson ones. . . •

Your motto Ne Cede Malis is a comfort to me whenever I look
at it, and I cannot but be pleased with the little paragraph in the
Indian Nation sent herewith.

I can stand the supersession and even worse blows, but I won’t
deceive myself or you and say that I have not felt it, or that I believe
the H. C. are right in passing me over. There, my dear, I did not mean
to refer to the matter again but I think you will be pleased to hear
about the influence of the motto and about the Indian Nation .

3*5

India Called Them

,§L

Jnry did not like being passed over but he bore no ma 1
e reported a friendly talk with Rampini and he was charitable
to the Lieutenant-Governor.

5 / 5/8 8.

Do not refrain your feet from die Shrubbery. They are nice people
and the L.G. probably could not help himself and felt bound to do
what the H.C. recommended. He is very anxious, and properly so,
not to have a collision with them.

“My highest duty was not to have married again.” Jeanie’s
ghost never came between Henry and Annette, but neither was
she ever forgotten. One September (it was the day before the
anniversary of his first marriage seventeen years before) Jeanie
came to Henry’s mind. He wrote to Annette in Darjeeling.

11/9/88.

It has been borne in upon me that I ought to go once and see
Jeannie’s tomb and surroundings. I have often wished to go and have
put it off and off and I know if I do not go now' I may never go at all.
It will not be a cheerful or enjoyable trip to me but I feel it a sort of
duty. I shall not forget you and all that you have been and are to me
when there.

“My darling wife,” he wrote to Annette two days later,
“I like to look at you on my table, earmarked as my slave by
your pendants,” and the same night he set ofl for Barisal to
make his pilgrimage to a memory. He spent two days there,
but of what he found at Jeanie’s grave there is no record. On
the day of his return to Calcutta he wrote:

18/9/88.

I have not time to write all my adventures &c. for I must go to
Court. . . . How glad I shall be to see you all in October. Mr. Lucas
died at Barisal about two months ago and left his family in involved
circumstances. Mrs. L. and her two daughters are coming to Calcutta
and will put up with me. I wish you were here to help me in looking
after them. . . .

Have you not business in Calcutta and could you not come down
and return with me ?

About Jeanie the rest is silence. The past was past. Henry
never went to Barisal again, not even when eleven years later
he made his free scholar’s pilgrimage to India.

316

Last Rounds With India

:cka

s ere are things and classes in India which have brushes
poetry about her people .” Henry and Annette had come
to think differently about India, as about religion. To Annette
the two years that she spent in Calcutta trying to start her school,
before she married Henry, were a searing experience.

22/9/84.

I expect no happiness in Calcutta except through you. It is for me
a place of jarring and discord—of falsehood and contention—of
over-strain and loneliness. I know no spot on earth with which I feel
so uncongenial. Yet you will redeem it and we will have pleasant
times togedier.

So Annette had written from England to Henry some years before
when there was expectation that she would join him posted in
Calcutta. It was not only Calcutta but all India now that for
Annette needed Henry’s redeeming presence. India had not been
burned into her as into him. With the sands of his service-time
running low her mind was already walking westward. The future
of her children would be in England. There was one child for
special care.

“Poor Herman is retarded.” As the darkening new background
to the rest of the family life came the realization that all was not
well with Herman. This realization did not come at once. After
taking the family to Darjeeling for the first time in 1887, Annette
paid a visit to Calcutta and returning to Darjeeling at the end of
July reported gleefully to Henry how “ all the dear children
met us with radiant and rosy faces.” Nearly a year later, after a
winter together again at Ballygunge, Annette wrote: “ all the
children are well; it is certain now that they have taken no harm
in Calcutta.”

But this was putting a bright face on fear. Herman was then
and always a beautiful child, the picture of rosy health. But at
2% years he was not developing normally. He remained at his
baby tricks: “Herman was very gay and sweet this evening,
though he did put his finger in a candle and turn head over
heels surreptitiously.” He was not learning to speak. Near
the end of his third year of life Henry and Annette faced
this fact.

3i7

India Called Them

yam sorry, wrote Henry, that Herman is still such a baby but I
agree with you in not making oneself anxious. We can do nothing
and at all events he is happy now. Speech must come in time.

As another winter and spring passed without speech coming,
both felt the need for doing something. Annette in Darjeeling
had found a doctor whose special interest was children. She got
Henry to send to her from Calcutta her diaries and her letters
recording the illness day by day. She went through it all again
with the doctor and wrote it out for Henry.

14/9/89.

I have been long sitting with Dr. Cobb and going through that
cruel record of Herman’s illness. The result is one to make us both
rejoice. ... He does not think the intelligence affected in any
considerable degree but that part of the brain dealing with words
unmistakeably so. He advises us to try to put ourselves in com¬
munication with the intelligence by any means—words or signs—
and so to educate. ... He says he sees no ground for despair. . . .
By and bye when older (and able without suffering to leave his ayah)
he can go to a kindergarten school or even a deaf and dumb school if
necessary. Infantile haemiphigia Dr. Cobb calls it—aphasia.

The paralysis of the illness, as the doctors had recognized at the
time, had meant that there had been some kind of effusion of the
brain. The paralysis had passed, but damage had remained.

Henry, for his part, though he always recognized Annette as
the senior partner for decisions about the children, was not a
father who thought that providing an income to keep his family
was all his father’s duty. In the autumn of 1889, while planning
if possible to come to Darjeeling for Christmas to see the family
as a whole, he suggested to Annette that she might come down
to Calcutta for a visit before then, bringing Herman with her:

1/11/89.

I fed that I have a duty to him more than to the others, and though
I would dearly love to see them all, yet coming down here might
interfere with their education. I should like to study Herman more,
though I have no wish to try any experiments on him. Kanchi might
come down with him and stay as long as he was here or indeed it
might be enough if she came down with you on the train and then

318

Last Rounds With India

back. I think that we could manage him without her f<
(• The seeing new things might do the poor fellow good.

Henry and Annette’s plans for their younger son were inter¬
rupted. As Henry was writing this letter from Calcutta, India
delivered her second blow at the family at their elder son Willie
in Darjeeling. For the end of October Annette had planned an
expedition with all the elder children along one of the great
mountain ridges—Phallut, 10,000 to 12,000 feet high—which
hid Mount Everest from Darjeeling; the family were to march—
on ponies and in dandies—fifteen miles or so each day from
bungalow to bungalow. But, just before they could start, one of
the ponies went lame and two days after they would have started
Willie W'ent to bed with a towering fever.

Annette found herself in for another battle with death to save
a child. In the first weeks death often seemed near. Willie heard
his modier and sisters praying for him. He heard the doctor say
once that he was not out of danger, and hearing this he set his
jaw, determined to live, and did live. He set his mind also on
being able to come down for Christmas dinner, and in that too
he just succeeded, after all but two helpless months in bed.

319

Come home with us, my dear.

Annette from Darjeeling to Henry in Calcutta,
November 23, 1889.

I don’t care a tuppenny damn where we live.

Henry from Calcutta to Annette in Darjeeling,
February 1890.

The death of my dear dear sister has been a very great
blow to me.... I had thought that she might look after our
children and especially poor dear Herman, and so enable
you to come out here for a few months. Dis cditer visum.

Henry from Calcutta to Annette in Eastbourne,

August 25, 1890.

This is another heavy blow for you. . . . He had a happy
life, though a sad one for those who loved him.

Henry from Birbhum to Annette in Eastbourne,
about Herman, September 24, 1890.

What hopes and cares and toils, prayers and anxieties
and thoughts, must be lavished to rear a child.

Annette from Eastbourne to Henry in Calcutta,
October 1890.

I don’t know how you will get educated to the level of a
British householder.

Annette from Eastbourne to Henry in Calcutta,

March 9, 1891.

Chapter XVII

THE FAMILY RETREATS

T HE illness of die elder son in 1889, like that of the
younger one in 1886-87, had its mysterious features.
No one ever seems to have determined whether it was
typhoid fever or not. The treatment was as uncertain as the
diagnosis. A new drug—sulphonal—had just been introduced
and was given as a febrifuge; today it is known only as a narcotic.
For some weeks the child was regaled on a diet of fresh fruit
and cream; there followed other weeks of starvation on practically
nothing at all. “All! if only you could give an enema,” said one
of the doctors once to Annette (there was an unfortunate exchange
of doctors in the case). “My dear doctor,” she replied, “I have
given them scores of times.” By the grace of God and his mother,
die patient survived both the disease and the doctoring and
survived unscadied.

This second illness like the first, of Herman, led to an instant
and greater change of plans. In its very first days Henry wrote
of Willie:

Everybody tells me it is time he should go home. Lady Wilson says
she does not think that he should go home—she knows it. Forbes
says he visited seventeen preparatory schools when at home and at
last fixed on one at Eastbourne for his boy aged eight.

It was clear that reunion in India was at end.

Will’s illness [wrote Annette] has caused die surrender of all that I
once desired, indeed if I look, only to my wishes still desire.

The only question was whether the whole family should go
together or should once more be divided. Henry offered to take
io-year-o!d Willie home on his three months 5 privilege leave and
place him at a preparatory school or w'ith Maggie while Annette
with the others stayed on in Darjeeling:

22/11/89.

Do not at once scout this proposal. I only offer it as a suggestion.
. If you stayed you could see Phallut. . . . Another great

321

• o

India Called Them

in your leaving India next year is your
see that printed off before you leave India.

Akbar. I think

Annette declined ever again to be separated from any of the
children, “unless some misfortune happens to make my presence
necessary to you more than to the children." Of course she was
set on not being separated from Henry either.

23/1i/ 8 9.

Come home with us, my dear. These long separations are very
hard and I must stay with die children. For very long we may have
to guard against sequels to this fever and I must take up Herman's
training in earnest, once Will is on his legs again. Miserable little legs
they are just now! Come home with us, my dear.

This was in late November when Will was still to be in bed
another month; Annette was always looking forward.

Henry was equally decided. He was not ready to retire. He
was prepared to use his privilege leave to save Annette the journey
home. If she decided to go home with all the children—to that,
of course, he raised no objection—he would not take furlough
to go with her. To that there were objections both of loss of
salary and of break in his work.

It was settled that Annette with the four children should leave
India finally in the spring of 1890. There followed one of the
many major upheavals of Annette's career—parting with the
lease of Craigmount, packing some of the Darjeeling furniture,
selling the rest—all this interspersed with working on the proofs
of Aliar, with writing out a full record of Willie's illness for .the
trusted Dr. Cobb, with taking up again the problem of Herman.
“He is such a darling—but no speech," she wrote to Maggie in
January: “he may have to go to a school where speaking is
taught but I hope not." As soon as Willie could get about again,
she took him and Herman together to stay with a friendly Danish
tea-planter on the Lebong spur below Darjeeling, and was
encouraged by the way that the two boys made friends. But
Herman could not be treated as an ordinary child and there "was
anxious consideration as to'how he should be attended. He w^as
devoted to his ayah Kanchi; should she go with him? Could he
be separated from her without pain? Finally Annette decided
that a man would be better than Kanchi, The retinue wdth which

322

The Family Retreats

end she left Darjeeling early in March, and left India
and O. steamer Bengal two days later, included Emma
Vogel and a Lepcha man-servant Churji.

It included also Henry, so far as Aden. He took privilege leave
to help Annette for the first stage of her journey, and he spent
five days at Aden waiting for the steamer back to Bombay; he
declared afterwards that this gave him all he ever wanted to see
of Aden. Just before, he had been chosen as President of the
Bengal Asiatic Society for the following year. This gave Annette
intense delight, as the first European recognition for Henry.
His comment in giving the news to Annette was:

§L

17/12/89.

It is a great honour but I fear it will involve my keeping my
brougham again. I could hardly go in a ticca to the meetings could I ?

Henry was not “carriage folk” by nature; Annette w*as.
Henry, though he liked the Asiatic Society, was less excited
about that than he was about Annette’s Akbar. He begged to
be allowed to make her index. “I think I am competent to do
it and I would like to do it.” He gave Annette, before she left
India, a free hand as to where she should settle herself and the
family and him in Britain. He said that he did not care a tuppeny
damn where they settled.

The Bengal , leaving Aden, swung round so near the quay
that Annette and the children saw Henry’s face clearly. Then
they turned on Annette’s last journey from India.

They reached Plymouth in the last week of April 1890 and
left the ship there. Annette’s two problems were to decide on
where to settle for the education of the elder children, and to
discover what gave most hope for Herman. She went first for
a week to Dawlish, thence by Clifton to Ilfracombe, where she
found excellent lodgings for three months, May to July, at what
seems to us now golden age prices: £4-4-0 a week for three
sitting-rooms and six bedrooms, piano and service; “I took
them—the first I saw,* thus ignoring competitive principles.”
She found also individual tutoring for the children at 3/4 an
hour for the two elders taken together and 2/6 an hour for
tlie third child. At Hfracombe Annette and her four children
were joined by Fanny Mowatt and her two boys; the sisters

323

MIN ISTff

India Called Them

Annette’s first years at home again were ha

These west-coast lodgings followed from a first intention to
settle for education at Clifton. Annette had had her eye on the
west before she left India:

9/1/90, from Darjeeling.

Bristol people are so advanced in many ways that I believe that I
may even find a “lip-speaking” school for the dumb there which I
believe you would agree with me should bias me in favour of Clifton
against Bath. . . .

She announced her decision to Henry from Ilfracombe:

4 / 5 / 9 0 -

I have decided to settle at Clifton. I believe that I have done right
with the sort of conviction with which Akbar shot Jai Mall. ... I
send you the Head Master’s letter. I did not cry up Will, only said
what he had done, that his teachers had some talent and that he was
painstaking and industrious.

Annette found herself not infrequently denying the charge
that her children were prodigies, or that she thought diem so.
But their final destination for a first home in England was not
in die west. Annette heard things which set her against Clifton
and, while still at Ilfracombe in July, she announced to Henry
that the family were going to reside at Eastbourne. 1 hough
Henry had assured Annette before she left India diat he did not
care a tuppenny damn where she settled them all (and she knew
that he meant it), every now and again he bobbed up with a
suggestion of Scotland. But the last of these arrived on the day-
on which Annette had taken a four-year lease of a house in
Eastbourne, and caused no trouble. Henry really did not mind
where he lived, provided the family were together and there was
a library within reach. Also they were agreed that they did not
want to live in a street if they could help it.

The last weeks at Ilfracombe were made delightful by a visit
of Henry’s favourite sister. Aunt Maggie endeared herself to the
children and fell in love with them. Early in August the whole
party left Ilfracombe and, by Lynton, Exmoor and Exeter,
travelled by easy stages eastward. Annette and her eldest, Letty,
were bound for Eastbourne to find a home; Maggie, Fraulein,

324

WNIST/fy.

The Family Retreats

pfcha Churji, and die younger children were bound
*£ad, to stay with Annette’s sister Fanny and her brother-
in-law James Mowatt at the new house which they had built
there—Kingswood Firs. The family parted at Woking,
to be brought together again two days later by unawaited
disaster.

Maggie, walking through fir-woods along th€ mile-long drive
of Kingswood Firs, was overtaken by James Mowatt with his
two sons, driving back to the house in a light trap with two
horses, and accepted his offer of a lift. Soon after die horses
bolted, the carriage struck a tree and all were dirown out.
Maggie’s skull was fractured and she died without becoming
conscious. The others were injured in various degrees.

Annette, summoned back from Eastbourne, sent a telegram to
a friend in Calcutta—Alicia Allen—to break the news to Henry
and followed it with a letter.

13/8/90.

It is a singular fact diat close round in this country there were
several accidents on this same day. Some people diink there was an
atmospheric disturbance which caused excitement. In this case no one
seems to know why die horses went off. . . .

My thoughts of Maggie are all of gracious and tender ways and I
feel that we have been deprived of a most beautiful power for good
on our children. They loved her and she had always some quaint or
poetic thought or quotation to give them. ... If it can comfort
you to know that I had come to love her very dearly and felt great
content and peace in her society, take the comfort my dear husband.
You can hardly grieve more than I.

Henry got the delayed telegram twelve days later. Maggie was
nearer to him than to anyone else in the world. Yet, in his. grief,
characteristically, he thought always of others.

25/8/90.

The death of my dear dear sister has been a very great blow to me.
I had so counted on seeing her again, and upon going excursions with
her, and I had thought that she might look after our children, and
especially poor dear Herman, and so enable you to come out here for
a few months. Dis aliter visum.

I have not gone to Maldah. It is better to stay here alone and think
out matters. I don’t approve of trying to run away from one's grief.

325

India Called Them

accident must have been a terrible shock to you an

cnpdfen. . . .

If you think it necessary, will you kindly send two or diree pounds
from me to Phemie. She will probably have some extra expenses for
mourning.

I am glad that none of our children saw the accident. Poor James—
I am very sorry for him and have done my best to console him.

I am very sorry for you. You were not well before and this additional
grief must weigh heavily upon you. Keep up my dear and do not
despair. We must endure till the end.

This was in August. Fate had another blow ready for Sep¬
tember.

Herman, in England, continued as in India, the picture of rosy
health and intelligence, but speaking noises only, no words,
though well on in his fifth year. He was a creature of friendly
mischief —a young human brain that could not communicate.
Already in Ilfracombe Annette had realized that Herman might
never become normal. One Sunday evening in June, “after our
prayers and our singing,” she talked to the trio about him. In
a letter written that same night to come to them after her death,
she repeated what she had said :

15/6/90.

We know not what will become of our little Herman. Perhaps by
God’s grace and the mercy of nature, he will become as others are.
Perhaps not! My children I leave him to you, a sacred trust. Love
him and guard him and protect him.

Hope for Herman was becoming doubt. But Annette never
gave up trying. She did all she could to make communication
with Herman herself and through the elder children.

4/5/90.

I believe I ought to give Herman quantities of toys. He learns from
each one. The elder children are most kind to him and Tutu has
established a great ascendancy—she orders and he obeys.

She sought what seemed to be the best possible advice. Twice
with great weariness and expense she travelled from Ilfracombe
to see a knighted specialist, about herself and about Herman,
preparing the way by a detailed history of Herman’s case, inviting
whatever consultation the doctor thought best. She was told

326

The Family Retreats

§L

trouble that she should not expect to get any bette:
wn deafness. She was told that Herman had aphasia caused
by his illness and was advised to keep him at home.

This suited her own desires. But Henry thought that stronger
and more professional treatment might be needed, and Annette
addressed herself to the problem of finding a home where such
treatment and teaching could be given. She wrote, after Maggie’s
death, from Eastbourne:

24/8/90.

Our little Herman is much in my thoughts and I am now proceeding
to discover to the best of my power what is to be done for him. I
have today written to Dr. L. Browne to ask the object of the house
and the class of cases admitted.

There is no doubt of progress in the little one. . . . What I find,
now that a little leisure is vouchsafed to me, is that he listens and looks
when I talk—not always—no child does— and is more companion¬
able. He does like other little children so much! He got a rebuff on
the beach, for he walked up to a boy and tickled his neck—a child
of his own size—and the boy gave him a thump.

This rebuff is almost the last thing recorded of Herman. The
day after she wrote this Annette signed the lease of a house at
Eastbourne, and went into it a fortnight later. On the day after
that Herman fell ill and in twenty-four hours he died. It was five
weeks only from Maggie’s death.

By Herman’s death, Annette’s spirit became nearer to being
broken than at any other time in all her adult life. She fell ill
and had to take to her bed. For once her letters to Henry show
almost the accents of despair.

October 1890.

I cannot write even to you about the little creature. By and by I
will try. I have only one way, now I am feeble, to get back to daily
life and that is—to look rarely inwards. ... I am afraid, my dear,
that you will find me very tiresome for I cannot get on without much
help and care. I would not have you take furlough but retire as soon
as you conveniently can. Don’t trouble about bringing things with
* you. Only what you wish please bring. Burn my old letters dear—
they are worthless now and I just feel that nothing matters if I can
have you. . . .

I thought myself much better but am cold and low this afternoon.

327

India Called Them

T can’t sleep well without an opiate. . . . There have been times
■jSmen I tliought I should never see you again.

I have no heart to think of Akbar. That must wait till you are
back to help me back to life. I am so weak-brained that I cannot bear
to have two ideas presented to me at once. ... I do not know when
you will come but I look for you as those who look for the morning.

Henry’s response was characteristic. Four days after Herman’s
death, though before the news reached him, he had written from
Birbhum:

16/9/90.

Do not fret about poor Herman. He may come right yet. But if
not we shall make a purse for him.

When the news reached him, broken through the kindly
Alicia Allen, he wrote:

24/9/90, from Birbhum.

This is another heavy blow for you. . . . Poor dear child. Perhaps
it is as well that he died before us, and did not live to be an orphan,
but his death must have been a great shock and grief to you. ... I
am glad that I went with you as far as Aden and so got to know the
child so well. He had a happy life though a sad one for those who
loved him.

30/9/90, Alipore.

Poor dear Herman. Kanchi will be sorry when she hears the news.

Annette came to see with Henry that the release was merciful:
“after this last attack he could never have been himself again.”

October 1890.

What hopes and cares and toils, prayers anxieties and thoughts,
must be lavished to rear a child. And how many a man or woman
gives no sign of all the labour he or she has demanded. Yet surely
most parents are as we are. ... I do not believe my dear little child’s
life is ended. ... I am going to put Christmas roses on his little
grave. I shall send you a photograph if any friend comes and takes it
but I cannot go to a stranger.

In this same letter Annette took up other topics: to d how she
had removed Will from the first school found for him which
had proved to be “a one horse shay emblazoned with humbug,
and discussed the pensioning of Ramyad the bearer and Iiurree s

328

The Family Retreats

/Soon after she was making suggestions to her brotl)^
^avid to get a collection of Maggie’s poems printed; was
taking up her interest again in die reviews of her book on Akbar;
was taking infinite trouble to arrange through a friend the
safe return to India of Churji, Herman’s Lepcha attendant;
was “squaring Stigand Major,” that is to say frightening to
death a bigger boy who on die way home from school had, in
the manner of boys, been making life a burden to her precious
Will. She lay in wait for diis unlucky larger boy as he came out
of school to go home, and told him that the next time he touched
Will on the road it was her intention to instruct her solicitor to
make him over to die police for assault; Annette added that she
was a woman of her word.

i l 2 b t -

For once I was thankful that I look so dreadful when I am angry!
My trio said diat they would not for any consideration have been in
Stigand Major’s shoes when I looked like that.

Annette did not content herself with putting to flight the
enemies of her son. She was setting herself to cultivate friends
for him. “The girls have friends galore but Will has no chums
to go to school with, and to be an only boy is a detriment.”

She began to see that she was doing many tilings which would
normally fall to Henry.

7/2/91.

Letty says that we shall all feel it very strange at first to have you
and of course we shall after such a long absence, but we all think it
will be delightful. Only you must remember that I have had so much
to arrange without consulting you that I may seem despotic from habit.

Among other things Annette was learning something of the
trials of urban householders. She and Henry had lived for a good
many years in India with few or no drains. Now she learned that
all is not sanitation that is drains in England. The drains of. I he
Croft, though they had just been passed as sound by a municipal
inspector, proved to be unsound in die extreme; they let sewage
gas into the china closet and other unsuitable places; die cook
went to hospital dangerously ill with typhoid fever. “At this
moment,” wrote Annette reporting on diese events, “diree

329

MINlSr^

India Called Them

are considering my drains—my landlord, a
whom I called in as an independent person and
man to me unknown.”

7 / 2 / 91 -

Three days last week I was inspected. ... I have just looked into
the garden and find it is dug up here and there. . . . There is a
municipal storm going roundme and I have just had a sub-committee
of the municipality to crown the inspections. . . . The poor cook is
really getting better and may recover if no relapse occurs.

Later Annette reported the satisfaction of her doctor: he said
that the whole proceedings of die Croft case had been most
useful and by calling attention to lax inspection might do “very
great and lasting good to the town.” Annette was less enthusiastic
about die Croft case.

9/3/91-

I say that I wish that a town councillor had been made the instrument
of reform, not I ... I don’t know how you will get educated to the
level of a British householder.

In the new activities of English life and the launching of the
three children at school, the distresses and calamities of the year
1890 faded. But Annette proposed and Henry of course approved
a permanent memorial of Herman, the endowment of a cot at the
Princess Alice Hospital, “so that some poor children’s lives may
be brightened by his.”

23/10/90.

I think that (if you agree) I will pay the endowment of the little
bed at once. I can do it and I will endeavour to set aside the sum by
annual instalments from my income and repay the capital. There are
two forms of endowment: one of £1000 nominates 12 patients yearly
and one of £5°° with half the nominations. It is the £500 I want to
give as I think it is most in harmony with our means. . . .

Do you remember asking me not to travel 3rd class ? I thought of
it when I sent you last week’s account. I paid about £% for our party
from Dulverton. It would have cost about ^23 first class and I could
not spare £ 23 for such a purpose.

The tablet recording tire endowment stands still in the
hospital, simply with name and date. Annette thought at first

330

MINIS

The Family Retreats

* inscription for her son who had never spoken. Sh
in die end use it, but she pasted it in her diary:

§L

In tender memory of our beloved son Herman and so that in his name
there may be ministry of love we have endowed a bed in this hospital

“He being dead, yet speaketh.”

33 1

MIN ISTfy

I am packing all your letters. ... It is the si[e of the
Buddha boxes which appals me.

Henry from Alipore to Annette in Eastbourne,
December 1890.

I think I shall like Berhampore .

Henry from Berhampore to Annette in Eastbourne,
December 1891.

I think that all I have ever done , and it has been little
enough , has been due to my forgetting the things behind.
... I have fulfilled my destiny more than I used to think.

Henry from Berhampore to Annette in Eastbourne,

March 1892.

I am glad that the children cannot swallow the Bible
wholesale.

Henry from Berhampore to Annette in Eastbourne,

May 22, 1892.

Isn't Lettys birthday on the 10 th July? What an old
young lady she has become.

Henry from Berhampore to Annette in Eastbourne,

June 1892.

MINIS/*,.

Chapter XVIII

HENRY’S LAST STATION

H ENRY’S first reaction to the death of his sister Maggie
was the desire to leave India as soon as possible and
finally. He had played with the hope that Maggie might
look after the children, so that Annette could come out for a
last winter with him in India. This hope was gone.

13/9/90.

I am so upset and so to speak broken-hearted by Maggie’s death
that I feel as if I could not go on working, and that I ought to come
home and be with you. However I know that it is not safe to be
guided by feelings. I shall certainly go on working now and you
need not fear that I shall break down. I want to do whatever is best
for you and the children. I have no duty, I think to India, and both
my duty and my inclination seem to tell me that I should bid a final
adieu to this country in April. Let me know what you think. . . .

I have nothing to keep me here after I have served a year at the
Asiatic and put the Public Library straight.

This was written by Henry from Alipur in September on the
day after Herman’s death, though in ignorance of it. If Herman
had gone on living, Henry would probably have carried out his
first intentions, of coming home for good at once to help Annette
with the care of this child, towards whom he felt a special duty,
as he did towards every creature in need of help. But the second
death removed one reason for leaving India. And India had her
claws in Henry more firmly than he knew.

At the end of September, even after he had heard of Herman’s
death, Henry was still inclined to finish with India at once.

30/9/90.

I mean to retire altogether in March or April. It is no use coming
out again, and 1 am tired of this separation. I am no longer as young
as I was. ... I liked much the description of your house, I think
we shall be happy in it.

By the beginning of November he had changed his plan. He
was going to ask for nine months’ furlough from February 1 ,

333

misr^

India Called Them

J§L

that it would be possible to come out again foij
fang winter: “I won’t come out again if you finally dis¬
approve.” Annette wanted Henry desperately. “Dear Henry,”
she had answered one of his earlier letters, “feelings must rule
sometimes by right of being right.” But Annette knew, better
perhaps than Henry himself, what a final adieu to India would
mean to him. She wrote: “One cannot, perhaps, sever so long a
connection with India except at leisure.” She liked his position
as President of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, as a recognition
by.Europeans of his work. She welcomed the idea of furlough,
as a means of getting more money from Government. So it was
setded between them that Henry should come home on furlough
as soon as he had finished with the Asiatic Society and delivered
his Presidential Address on February 3rd. He arranged to sail
from Karachi in the second half of February 1891. There can
never have been much doubt in Annette’s mind that he would
go out again.

Meanwhile Henry struggled with the preparation of his
Presidential Address: emptied the house at Alipur of furniture,
for whether he returned or not he would not need so large a
house again; and did a characteristic rescue of a German sailor
bov stranded at Birbhum 1 about a hundred miles noith-west of
Calcutta.

From Alipore, November and December 1890.

The Asiatic Society Address still troubles me but I have written
the exordium and collected the materials for the rest. I feel that I have
a good deal to say, but the best way of saying it is always a puzzle
to me. Style is the dress of thoughts according to Lord Chesterfield,
and we should not let them go out without it. I wish I had a Worth
to clothe mine for me.

Ramyad has been busy packing. We have put up the two Buddhas.
They are heavy and you will be startled by the size of the boxes. . . .
I have packed four more boxes in addition to seven sent already. . . .
I am packing all your letters. . . . The house is quite bare of furniture

, This was the station at which Sir William Hunter, a younger contemporary of
Henry’s, began, in a stay from 1863 to 1866, the book which made his early xeputation,
The AnnaU of Rural Bengal

334

Henrys Last Station

Mr. Buckland’s phrase I ride at single anchor,
of the Buddha boxes which appals me. . . .

Yesterday I drew out the children’s savings banks deposits, including
poor Herman’s, and will send them home to you for re-investment
next month. It is a pity that the rupi is no longer one and eightpence.
The children’s 1047 rupis yields only £77-5-0.

,<SL

The two Buddhas were marble images—once painted but
now white—which came originally from Burma and stood on
the stair landings at Dilkusha, Henry’s Alipur house. They
were subsequently at The Croft, Eastbourne; at Henry’s Surrey
home, Pitfold; and at the cottage at Avebury, Wiltshire, once
belonging to his son. They now look south across the lawn at
Tuggal Hall, Chathill, Northumberland. Though less than three
feet high they are, as Henry said, surprisingly heavy—needing
three or four men to carry them.

From Birbhum, September 1890.

I am not sorry that I had an opportunity of seeing this place which
has been rendered classical by the genius of a Hunter. ... I shall
be here till the end of the week. When I go down, I am to take with
me a German boy of the name of Maxse Persel, who appears to have
run away from his ship and who wandered up here of all places in the
world. He has been staying with the McKennas and I could not refuse
to take him down. Indeed I offered to do so. I will put him on board
a Hamburg liner if possible. . . .

From Alipore, October 1890.

Max Persel went away yesterday in the Hochheiner for Hamburg.
I paid Rs. 60 to the Captain for him and hope to receive it from the
fadier in Munich. I could not help taking him down to Calcutta and
trying to get him a ship but I am glad he is off my hands.

Henry, having delivered himself of his Presidential Address
on February 3rd, made his way across India, and in due course
followed the Buddhas and Max Persel home. He travelled this
time all the way round from Karachi to Liverpool, and reached
Eastbourne at the end of March. There he saw for the first time
the house which Annette had taken for him and the family on
the day when he had last expressed a desire to settle near
Edinburgh. There he set himself at once to a new task—of
learning at the age of 54 to ride a bicycle.

Neither Henry nor The Croft was w r ell suited to this enterprise.

335

MiN/sr^

India Called Them

while physically strong and untiring, was not clever
nds and feet: “I am delighted to think,” he once wrol
iette, “that my children have your hands and not my clumsy
ones.” The only place in The Croft premises where he could
practise was a sloping kitchen garden padi about thirty feet long;
down this Henry hopped behind his steed day after day, jumped
on and lurched off into an apple tree on one side or a gooseberry
hush on the other side. The sympathetically observing children
could only be thankful that at least it was a safety bicycle and
not a penny-farthing ordinary. Only two or three years before
in Calcutta one of these children at a gymkhana had watched a
bicycle race in which all but one of the vehicles was an ordinary;
he had noted with a sense of unfairness that the one small safety
bicycle was expected to give the rest a long start; he had barely
been able to believe his eyes when die safety, overcoming its
handicap, swept past to easy victory.

Henry by 1891 had at least a safety cycle, though with cushion,
not pneumatic, tyres. And dogged did it at last. For midsummer
day Annette’s diary recorded that at 2 a.m. she made H. B. s tea
for him and at 3 a.m. saw him off into space on a cycle. Henry
that summer travelled die length and breadth of England,
descending battered upon friends who bound his w'ounds. He
brought his steed .widi him to the Scottish holiday which the
whole family spent mainly in Grantown-on-Spey. But at last
the time came for him to return for his last station in India.
Annette saw him off from the Albert Dock at the end of
October.

He sent home his usual verbal sketches of fellow-passengers:
Cotton (Sir Henry to be) “as vigorous as ever”; Wingate “as
modest as he is clever and his wife is very nice too ; Lord
Borthwick “very shy and plebeian looking ; a doctor s v. r ife
“a clever lady who has been to Iceland etc. and talks brightly
about Tolstoi, Rudyard Kipling and the nature of woman”; a
fellow-civilian who was “a wild Irishman but hardly a Home
Ruler ” for as Henry conceded he was an Ulsterman and Episco¬
palian. But this was Henry’s twelfth or thirteenth voyage and the
glow was off it. “The gorgeous East no longer attracts me.

On reaching India Henry found that his last station was not
to be Calcu tta. His place there had been wanted for another:

336

Henry s Last Station

.. 29/1 ’.^SL

pini had nothing to do with my transfer. It was made inifie^^
fest of Luttman-Johnson. His wife was Mrs. Stack and did not
want to go back to Shillong on account of painful associations. She is
a great friend of the Elliots. The High Court, however, objected to
Luttman-Johnson getting a judicial appointment as he had chosen the
executive line. So the job fell through and then they had not the
honesty I suppose to cancel my transfer.

Thus Henry for the last of his thirty-five years of service to
India was sent to the backwoods again, though not to the place
at first proposed for him.

29/11/91.

I am not to go to Rajshahi after all. I have been offered Murshidabad
instead and all my friends have advised me to take it. There are
barracks where I can get rooms, it is near Calcutta, is an interesting
district, and has no outstation like Maldah.

The district of Murshidabad, though nearer to Calcutta than
Rajshahi, was not very near. Its capital, Berhampore, where
Henry took up his solitary quarters in the barracks, was twelve
miles from any railway.

*/ I2 /9i-

Berhampore is a very awkward place to get to. I started from
Howrah at 7-30 a.m. yesterday and did not get here till 9-30 p.m.
The Nulhatty State Railway is the most primitive thing in railways
that I have ever seen. It has no fences, no station houses, and it takes
three hours and ten minutes to do 27J miles. It conveys you to
Azimganj and then you have to cross the Bhaginutty in a ferry-boat
and drive 12 miles.

But Henry’s friends rallied round him. Alicia Allen in Calcutta,
wondering to Annette what Henry had done about house linen
and such things, offered with delight to do anything she could
for him. His old khitmutgar and several other servants were
waiting for him and all ready to go with him to the Mofussil.
The Ranee Surnamoye sent a carriage and relays of horses for the
last stage of his journey.

And Henry as always was determined to enjoy his fate.

1-7/12/91.

I think I shall like Berhampore. The work is light and the stadon
is open and pretty. There is also the glamour of antiquity about

337

MiN/sr^

India Called Them

dabad. ... I have got very good quarters in the b!
looking on the parade ground. They are really healthie^
pleasanter than any house I could get here and I pay only Rs. 20
(twenty) a month for them. For this I have three fine rooms with
two bathrooms &c. and godowns for the servants.

After all, as Henry wrote in another letter, “absence from you
and the children is such a wrench that I really don’t mind what
part of Bengal I am in, provided that I can economise.”

Economy was certainly called for. The expense of transporting
and establishing Annette with her brood in England was great,
and now school bills began to come in. The rupee exchange was
going from bad to worse. Henry arrived in India owing a large
debt to his bankers, Grindlay’s. He found himself with the
Alipur house upon his hands; it stood empty and one plan after
another for finding a tenant failed.

Economy was called for, but Henry never economized at the
cost of others. He continued to send £5 notes to his surviving
sister Phemie, and Annette backed them by a monthly parcel
from Eastbourne. Phemie, like Henry, had come to believe that
death closes all, and though she liked his gifts she wanted even
more his letters. On Maggie’s death she had written:

10/10/90.

Eternity is in human hearts alone. We will never see each other
again. The thought of death brings no consolation. It is a sad and
terrible human calamity and the grave closes over all our endeavours.
But the world is beautiful still and nature’s charms never cease.

Now thanking Henry for a gift that would mean to her a warm
winter coat Phemie went on:

29/3/91.

Will you write me sometimes? How much I prize a letter. ... I
wish I could write something worth reading birds and flowers,
nests and young ones.

Henry did write and the old breach between these tw r o was
healed.

In economy one of the purposes of the bicycle became apparent.
From his earliest days in India Henry had always had horses to
ride and drive; more than thirty years before his brother and
sisters, in their bankrupt home, had felt the exaltation of having

338

§L

Henry’s Last Station

^er who drove his own buggy. Now in his last sta
did without horseflesh entirely, without the coachmen,
syces, and grass-cutters of his middle days. He arranged with a
ticca gharry to drive him to his Court for Rs. io a month, took
his bicycle on the roof, and rode back on it at the end of the day.
Later he dispensed even with the ticca gharry , rode both ways,
and saved the Rs. io a month.

These proceedings were not free from trouble. Henry wrote
to his, one hopes, sympathetic son, how bicycling home one
evening he had experienced a difficulty, for it had become obvious
that the Treasury Guard at the barracks proposed to salute him.
“However I am so far proficient now that I am able to take my
right hand oft’ the handle and gravely return their salute.” As
his proficiency and the heat of India grew, he essayed even
bolder flights. “Yesterday morning,” he reported to his daughter
Letty, “I tried if I could ride the bicycle, holding an umbrella in
one hand, and I managed to get round the square, but the steering
is a little difficult.” Henry decided that it was too difficult and
took to the ticca gharry again for hot mornings. “The natives
are much interested,” wrote Henry on another occasion, “and
I mount my steed under much observation.”

The bicycle became the companion of many expeditions.
On it Henry went to Bhasrapur to the house of Nanda Kumar
and reported to his younger daughter Tutu how he had been
received by Kumar’s descendant with royal honours, as champion
of his ancestor. “He had a red cloth laid down, arches with the
word welcome inscribed upon them, sepoys on guard, musicians
over the gateway.” One can only hope that Henry steered
straight below the music.

On the bicycle Henry visited the battlefield of Plassey, and
in the village hall on a stool provided by an obliging ryot, sat
and conversed with the assembled grey-beards about the battle.

3/2/92.

I was interested to find that they knew something about it. One
man enthusiastically said that Mir Madan’s fame would last as long as
the world. They then diverged to more pressing matters and begged
me to ask the Collector to make bigger water passages in the embank¬
ment that they might get water for their crops. During the parley one
man brought in his hand two round sweetmeats and offered to fetch

339

India Called Them

I ate the two and washed them down with two glasses o
die sacred Bhagirathi.

On the same faithful steed Henry went to see the grave of
Warren Hastings’ first wife and baby daughter at Cassimbazaar.
His brother Allie had been stationed there more than thirty years
before and had been instrumental in getting the grave put in
order. Now Henry reported to his daughter Letty.

I 3/ I2 /9 I *

The little graveyard is disused now and overgrown with jungle so
that I stepped about with caution and was glad when I could jump
on to a flat tomb stone and so see that there was no cobra lying in
wait for me. Mrs. Hastings’ tomb is in a sort of alcove and when I got
inside of it I had a pleasant surprise. A dove fluttered hastily out as
if it had been caught by surprise, and I looked round and there in a
comer of the inside ledge running round the alcove was her nest with
two beautiful snow-white eggs in it. I thought that Mrs. Mary
Hastings and her daughter would have liked such an inmate of their
resting-place.

Henry, the gentle-hearted, filled his children’s growing minds
continually with pleasant thoughts and images. To Letty he wrote
a few months later.

17/4/92.

I wish you could see the beautiful trees here. ... I am always
struck with the greenness and freshness of the trees in Bengal even
under a blazing sun. It always makes me think of a strong character
which remains pure and beautiful in the midst of evil surroundings
because it draws strength and refreshment from sources below the
surface.

To his son Willie he sent some Greek “in return for yours.
The passage is perhaps worth all the rest of the Bible. It is curious
how in the most famous books in the world it is only a few
passages here and there that really live.” (Alas! the enclosure is
lost and there is no recovering now which of his many gifts of
thought to his son this was.)

To Letty again he wrote:

1 7/5/92.

On the way out to Murshidabad I saw an interesting sight, this
was a number of Sonthils travelling home from the tea districts.

340

Henry s Last Station

ere women and children among them and some of the
^iifthangis like milkmen, at each end of the bhangi there hung
market and in one was their rice, blankets etc., and in die other and
keeping die balance true was a child or it might be a couple of
children. It was so funny to see a little child sitting so gravely in the
middle of the scale as if he was so many seers of goods.

Letty was now rising 15—a clever creature once tempestuous,
now tender, die eldest child, on whom above all Henry’s hopes of
new companionship and interests were set. Henry always remem¬
bered her birthday exactly; he was often vague about the others.

13/6/92.

Isn’t Letty’s birthday on the 10th July? What an old young lady
she has become.

While pursuing the new and difficult art of the bicycle, Henry
in his last station had recourse also to a very old friend—the
concertina. He had consoled himself with this in his first lonely
years in India. During an earlier absence from Annette—in
1886—he had asked her if she could to find the concertina and
send it out to him; she had dien begged him not to press his
request: “the concertina died before my time and I have not
shed a tear for it.” But apparently it had been discovered and
now Henry renewed his plea.

n/1/92.

If my Concertina has not been sold I think I should like to have it
sent out to me along with some sacred and other music for the
Concertina. It would not cost much to send it and I really think that
it would be a solace to me sometimes in my lonely hours after dinner.
I cannot read much. If then you don’t mind, will you kindly tell the
music man (Hargraves, is it, in Terminus Road) to put the Concertina
into repair and send it out to me.

Annette and Hargraves did their part and Henry almost at once
got his concertina. Whether he ever mastered it even as imper¬
fectly as the bicycle or the typewriter is not established.

As the children grew older, fresh problems arose about their
religious education. Annette hacl won her point about sending
them regularly to Sunday service, but Henry was clear, and she
did not resist this, that they should not be made members of any
church in childhood. “I am glad,” he wrote, “that the children

34i

India Called Them

ot swallow the Bible wholesale. ... I wish our cii
hid do without cramming scripture and I am glad to hear that
Letty resists confirmation. . . . Could you not get our children
excluded from examination in scripture?” Henry’s agnosticism
hardened, in place of softening, with the years.

The more I see and think over the matter, the more difficult do I
find it to be to discover any modus vivendi by which believers and
unbelievers can get together about these matters. It is not only the
facts of the Bible that are wrong. The whole scheme of the Christian
Religion gets more and more unintelligible to me. ... I like the
music and the tone of the “Rock of Ages” but can I for a moment
cheat myself into the idea that I believe what is being sung? . . .

What appals me sometimes is the hollowness that pervades public
and private life. We profess loyalty to the throne and are republicans
at heart. We profess Christianity and the bulk of us are sceptics or
atheists. When shall we always recognise that “clean and sound
dealing is the honour of a man’s nature?” Surely it must be very
deleterious to us all to go on saying one thing and believing another.
Is there at the present day—except for Gladstone—a single pious
politician or a pious philosopher or writer. . . .

A worthy Scotch Bishop used to comfort himself and his friends
by saying that things would go on as they had formerly, that the
world would continue to be governed by the wisdom of God and the
foolishness of man.

But alas! the wisdom of God seems so very inactive and the foolish¬
ness of man so terribly in the ascendant. Macaulay brushes away
Southey’s reliance on the mercy of God. He says: “The signs of the
times, Mr. Southey tells us, are very threatening. His fears for the
country would decidedly preponderate over his hopes, but for his
firm reliance on the mercy of God. Now as we know that God has
once suffered the civilised world to be overrun by savages and the
Christian religion to be corrupted by doctrines which made it for some
ages almost as bad as Paganism, we cannot think it inconsistent with
his attributes that similar calamities should befall mankind.”

This letter of Henry’s was written in 1892, before world wars
and their sequel of moral collapse.

Reflection on what he did not believe naturally was accom¬
panied in Henry by examination of what he did believe and of the
rules by which he lived.

342

MINISr^

Pitfold\ Hindhead , as rebuilt by Annette

Hentys Last Station

(ct

a 9/3/9*tlI j

referred the other day to Foster’s Essays and my admiration
for them. I was asking myself the other day what special good I got
from him and I answered myself that there was one passage in the
Essay on Decision of Character which I thought had done me good.
That is when he speaks of the folly of a man’s not seizing with a
strong hand the actualities of his situation and making the best of
them, but lamenting that if his age or his circumstances had been
different he might have done something. I think that passage impressed
upon me the folly of “greeting over spilt milk ’ and the wisdom of
trying again and doing the best in one’s present circumstances. I
think that all I have ever done, and it has been little enough, has been
due to my forgetting the things behind. Sir James Mackintosh tells
a story of some man who never could play whist well, because in
place of attending to the game before him he was lamenting the errors
he had made in the last hand.

In accord with this principle, Henry one Sunday reviewed
with cheerfulness his failure to win professional advancement.

13/3/92.

I have enjoyed my forenoon reading the Greek New Testament
and Macaulay’s Life. I think I see a purpose in my life unrolling itself.
The unconscious element has been at work and I have fulfilled my
destiny more than I used to think. If I had got into the High Court
I think I would only have done work which many others could do
as well or better. But if I retire I may be able to write a good History
of Bengal or to throw light on Indian Criminal Jurisprudence or (it
we take a house in the country and pose as public-spirited citizens)
we may go into Parliament as an Indian Member.

The History of Bengal rather than Parliament was Henry’s line,
even if it had been constitutionally possible for him to go there
as one member with Annette.

26/3/92.

I think that when I retire I shall write a History of Bengal. That
will give me occupation for ten years if I live so long.

He was to live for more than thirty-seven years after he wrote
this letter, and to find occupation, not exactly in a History of
Bengal, but in other writing and study in which “we” were
always working together. In one of his Calcutta Review articles
Henry had advocated the study of India’s past as a service to be

343 M

India Called Them

>®L

for her future. This was the service to which he gave lmj
^wholly when his official life was over.

Meanwhile Henry carried on with die daily round for his last
days of service as an official. “The High Court,” he reported
more than once to Annette, “are wonderfully civil to me.” “I
never trouble them now and they thanked me the other day for a
full and carefully constructed report on jurisdiction.” Henry’s
work in this last station was relatively light, though every now
and again came a big case of die kind “which gets between me and
my sleep.” Almost the last of his big cases arose out of a dispute
between some Ranees and a firm of Indigo planters about a piece
of land.

24/7/92.

It is a wonderful case. . . . Both sides admit that there was a riot
and a man killed, and that the name of this man was Masahib Khan.
But both claim the murdered man as dieir servant and both produce
books and witnesses in support of their assertion. I diink I see pretty
clearly where the truth lies and if the jury do not and convict the
wrong side, it will be a cause celebre and so a reductio ad absurdum
of the jury system. I am nearly but not quite wicked enough to hope
that the jury will convict the wrong side so that I can go up to the
High Court with a reference and an expose. ... I have never had
so elaborate a tissue of lies in all my Indian experience.

Inevitably Henry was proposing to take the unpopular line.

31/12/92.

You know that I am not favourably disposed to Indigo Planters.

. But in this case although the manager is a fool, and there has
been harsh and inconsiderate treatment of the ryots, there is no doubt
that the murder was committed by the ryots and not by the factory
people. Still I have no doubt that popular sympathy will be with
the ryots and it is likely enough that I shall be bitterly abused in
the native papers and, what to me is worse, lauded by the Anglo-
Indian press. But I think you know that I shall not be greatly moved
by these things, and that, to use the words of Clive, “I can go through
everything with pleasure so long as I can with truth and without
vanitv apply to myself the words of Horace: Justum et tenacera
propositi virum,” etc. I am afraid this sounds like boasting but it is
only for you.

Henry spent his last year of service as a single man in barracks,

344

Henry s Last Station

/as not without society. At first, feeling unable
in return, he felt shy of accepting dinner invitation^
TeTialved his social conscience by making a present of badminton
nets and bats to the local club. Later, when he had paid off his
debt to Grindlay’s, he acquired a new cook and began to give
dinners himself, even at the cost of having to spend the evenings
after them in playing whist. “Let that be counted among my
labours.”

He made particular friends with an engineer and his family
who had some Indian blood in diem. “I enjoyed your chocolates
immensely and so did the Livesey children.” Henry, with other
childlike qualities, always had a sweet tooth and Annette kept
him supplied. “Your delightful parcel arrived diis morning.
Many many thanks. I was so glad to get the chocolate. I don’t
have tiffin and I would often like a bit of chocolate.”

Henry interested himself in the differences of demeanour
between those of the mixed family who in their complexion
showed much and those who showed little of dieir Indian blood.
The former were shy and retiring as if conscious of their colour;
the latter took the lead. Their father in return expressed interest in
Henry’s religious opinions and sent him books which Henry
received doubtfully, fearing that they would be too evangelical.
But he found them better reading than he expected; Henry,
though firmly agnostic, never ceased to be interested in religion
or became unwilling to read sermons.

He went to visit an English lady married to an Indian to whom
she had borne ten children.

3i/ 5 /$> 2 -

She is all alone in Murshidabad among the Mahomedans, but seems
to maintain her place very well. She is very big and blonde while her
husband is an insignificant looking black man, who however seems
well disposed and is an excellent billiard player. ... I asked him
in the intervals of his strokes if his children were Christians or
Mahomedans. He said, neither; he was leaving them to form their
own opinions.

One would like to know how far the billiard break proceeded
after this searching interruption.

He paid an occasional visit to Calcutta, with one very old
friend went to the Indian Museum to study its display of

345

India Called Them

(si.

ic stones, and reported to his younger daughter a
sing ambition. “I told Dr. Crombie that my two great
ambitions in life were to save a man from drowning and to find
an aerolite.” To the same daughter Henry described once another
early ambition and the manner of its fulfilment. As the youngest
child of a bankrupt household, he had gone about hoping that he
might find a lost sixpenny bit. He had never had such luck as a
child. At last as a man he had found some money and had left it
lying, because he thought and hoped that someone else would
find it to whom it would give more pleasure.

If it had been a book, Henry would not have left it. For always
he was reading and telling Annette about one book after another:
the life of Sir James Mackintosh, “a disappointing and dis¬
appointed man who never could quite make up his mind whether
to devote himself to politics or literature . . . but he was a fine
fellow for all that”; The Pariah , by Anstey, whose “opening
chapter almost took my breath away for the author talked of
Furreedpore and Murshidabad and told a story—true to fact of
another place — of a Magistrate going to dine with an Indigo
Planter and finding a ryot locked up in a godown”; Lady
Hutchinson’s Memoir of her husband Colonel Hutchinson,
showing the tale of the Loathly Lady and Sir Gawaine realized
in real life; the Life of Archbishop Whately by his daughter:

4/6/92.

He once said that when he married one of the first things that he
and Mrs. Whately agreed on was that, if they should have children
they never would teach them anything that they did not understand.
“Not even their prayers, my Lord?” “No,” he replied, “noteven their
prayers.”

Henry went on waiting as well as reading, exploiting the historic
interest of Murshidabad. “All the natives think I am going to w r rite
a history of Murshidabad and are anxious to give me information
but I shall not do more than write an article or two.”

I have at last finished my second article on Murshidabad. ... I
fear vou will say it is rambling and heavy, a sort of run-away brewer’s
dray or better still Maple or Lancaster’s van and rumbling as well as
rambling. But I can’t do better.

346

MiN/sr^

Henry s Last Station
t on encouraging Annette to write.

am glad that you have taken up your book again. But do not hope
that it should pay. The object of writing a book is to liberate one’s
mind and to fulfil a duty.

So with daily work, reading and writing, and mild society,
Henry’s last year of his thirty-five slipped away. It did not go
fast enough for him. “The time does not pass very quickly, in
spite of all my historical researches.” “Only eight months more
to serve—hurrah,” he wrote at the end of April. “I know that
I shall get restless as the time of departure draws near,” he wrote
in July, less than six months from the end: “I am restless enough
already, God knows, and long to be with you all. ... It is
quite possible that I may feel it impossible to stay on till the
16th January and that I may resign by the 15th November. . . .
Exchange is so bad now that I do not gain much by staying on.”
As Henry played with the idea of leaving before the very end,
so he played with the idea of getting Annette to share his last
months of Indian service. She felt the attraction of that also.
Henry enjoyed himself building castles in the air about this plan
and what it would enable Annette to see, and suggesting a
number of extremely improbable companions, including his
brother-in-law James Mowatt. But expense, if nothing else,
made that seem not worth while for her.

So Henry stayed alone and, when the time came, on January 14,
1893, he^stepped out of India’s service all but unnoticed, as
quietly as lie had stepped into it thirty-five years before, on the
night when he heard the jackals howling on the tiger-haunted
island of Saugor.

347

MIN/Sr^

To my Husband who set my feet upon the Persian way and
has strewed it with open-hearted largesse of help and
counsel.

Dedication by Annette of her translation of
Gulbadan’s Humayun-Nama , November 1901.

I am thankful that I have been privileged to see the birth¬
place of Akbar and the graves of Anar kali, Abul-Faff,
and Badayuni.

Henry from Lucknow to Annette in Surrey,

December 21, 1899.

/ feel grateful for having been allowed to live so long. . . .
I shall not repine if now I have reached my term .... Not
having been able to contend successfully with my con¬
temporaries, I am still less able to cope with the much
cleverer and more highly equipped rising generation.

Henry from Calcutta to liis daughter Tutu in
Surrey on his 63rd birthday.

1 don't always fall upon my feet. I sometimes fall upon my
head, but then I am so constituted that I don't know the
difference.

Henry from Muradabad to his daughter Tutu in
Surrey, December n, 1899.

/ sometimes think that with your deafness , and my
awkwardness and uncouthness , I am nearer, to you on
paper than in person , and so I go on writing interminable

screeds to you.

Henry from Calcutta to Annette in Surrey,

January 7, 1900.

MiNisr^

INDIA REVISITED

H ENRY leaving India, as he thought, for the last time
in January 1893, did not travel direct to England.
Twenty years before he had planned to give his brother
David a jaunt to Italy to meet him as he returned for furlough.
That plan had been disturbed by Annette: David, in place of
stravaiging with lone Henry about the Continent, welcomed
Henry°and his new wife at Southampton. Now, twenty years
after, Henry carried through the interrupted plan, invited David
to meet him at Brindisi and, of course, paid all his expenses. As
Henry wrote to Annette at die time, “David is a link with all
my past and I cannot abandon or forsake him.

But equally, of course, Henry did not stay in Italy as long as
he had planned; the pull of Annette and the children was too
strong. After eight days spent in seeing Rome and odier sights,
Henry left David to enjoy die rest of the holiday alone, and
arrived unexpectedly at Eastbourne in die last days of Februai y,
to begin his new life as a British householder, and to enjoy his
children, and above all his eldest, Letty.

Fate had a cruel blow in store for him. Early in April Letty
fell ill widi what die doctors called influenza; in five days, on
April 14th, three mondis short of being sixteen, she was dead.
She had sat at Christmas for die Cambridge Local Examination.
After her death it was announced that she had been the most
successful of all the girl candidates, having gained both first-class
honours and die prize for German.

The next year is one of the blankest in the record. Annette
had not the heart to make many entries in her diary. Henry and
Annette were always together, so there are no letters, from the
loss of Letty two things followed.

First, the ill-fated “Croft” and Eastbourne were abandoned as
soon as the four-year lease was up. Henry and Annette had long
ago decided that they would not end dieir days in a town. The
only question was where to settle in the country. This, after

349

misTfy

India Called Them

Searches in many directions, they settled finally
Steristic speed. In the spring of 1894 the fluctuating relations
Annette’s sister Fanny, living with her husband James
Mowatt in Hindhead in Surrey, were in a short summery phase.
A house near by came into the market and Fanny telegraphed to
Annette urging her to take it: the telegram said optimistically
that the proceeds of one of the vineries would by themselves
pay the rent. Henry, rising at 6.30 one morning, went to see this
house; Annette followed the next day; two days later they signed
a contract for purchase of Pitfold. This was a property of ten
acres, 650 feet above the sea, with an old large garden and many
outbuildings, including a picturesque barn which became in
due course a billiard-room and dancing-room. The house itself
had begun, in 1792, as little more than a cottage, but a front and
a turret had been added to it, designed, it was said, by a former
owner who had been a local hairdresser. Here Henry and
Annette settled themselves at last; they made the garden really
beautiful. Here on each side of the door leading to the garden
the Buddhas reached a further station in their pilgrimage from
Burma to Northumberland. Here Henry and Annette’s two
surviving children grew up, and brought their friends to enjoy
the hospitality which Annette rejoiced to give. Here Henry once
expressed his view of Mr. Bernard Shaw’s Candida by burning
the volume containing it solemnly upon the lawn. 1

At Pitfold, it may be added, Mr. Bernard Shaw spent his
honeymoon. One summer in 1895 when Henry and Annette,
following a common Hindhead custom, decided to let their
house furnished and go for a change elsewhere, there appeared
as prospective tenant Miss Payne Townsend who, when arrange¬
ments had been completed, admitted gracefully that she planned
to take up the tenancy as Mrs. Bernard Shaw. The episode
brought Annette and Mr. Shaw together and they had much
argument whose nature is indicated by the inscription on a copy
of The Perfect Wagnerite which the author presented to her as
“perhaps the cleverest lady and the wickedest in her opinions
that I have ever met.”

From Pith id, in the days of the Suffragette Agitation, Annette

1 This rite was desciiLed later by Henry’s son William in his second book, John and
Irene: An Anthology oj J i • igkts on Woman, being there attributed to the hero “John,"
who apart from this has nothing of Henry in him. Irene never was on sea or land.

350

miSTffy,

India Revisited

id lost the one political battle of her career since
•'days. She became the local secretary, with boundless^
Energy, of the National Women’s League for Opposing Woman
Suffrage. Like Beatrice Webb and others who for a while were
in the same camp, Annette had never experienced any difficulty
in having her way without a vote.

But such activities were only a ripple on Annette’s main
stream of life which, as a second consequence of Letty’s death,
flowed even closer to Henry’s in pursuit of Indian studies.
Henry suggested that Annette in her grief should fill her mind
by learning Persian, and in her fifties she did so. Her first work
in this language was to prepare a text and translation of the
Humayun-Nama: this was the history of Humayun, eldest son
and successor of Babur the Mogul conqueror of India, written
in the sixteenth century by one of Babur’s daughters, Gul-badan,
or Lady Rosebody, as Annette liked to call her. Annette’s
dedication of this work, published when she was 60, was “To
my Husband, who set my feet upon the Persian Way and has
strewed it with open-hearted largesse and counsel.”

After Persian, Annette proceeded to learn yet another Oriental
language—Turki, and set herself to make a fresh translation of
the Babur-Nama, Babur’s own account of his life; this appeared
in four sections, the last of them when Annette was all but 80.
She interspersed in these major activities many articles, a
translation of a charming collection of stories for her children
written by a Persian lady—Bibi Brooke’s Key to the Heart of
Beginners , and a Persian fairy story which Andrew Lang
included in his Brown Book of Fairy Stories. In all this Henry
was an indispensable encourager, critic and assistant.

He himself had undertaken, not the History of Bengal, which
he had expected to last ten years if he lived so long, but, at die
request of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, the translation
from Persian of the Akbar-Nama of Abul-Fazl; this was the
history of Babur’s grandson Akbar, the greatest of India’s
rulers. Its translation proved a terrific and tiresome undertaking,
for Abul-Faz! spared neither himself nor his readers; he was a
leading example of what Henry described as the common vice
of Oriental historians: that none of them were able to get down
to dieir subject “without a preliminary prance among the

35i

India Called Theni

chs.” Abul-Fazl began his History of Aktar with
fd not reach his actual hero till the second volume;
tat largely with horoscopes of all die leading characters; he
practised a style which -was tortuous and obscure. Henry always
alluded to the author to whom he gave die last twenty years of
his working life as “the Owl.”

With these Oriental studies, Henry and Annette were never
short of happy occupation togedier. They lived both in Surrey
and in by-gone India. Henry found in these studies an apt
reason for seeing present India once more.

After six years in England he decided diat he must visit India.
He gave himself as objective of his journey, discovery and
collection of manuscripts bearing on Indian history and literature,
and particularly, if he could find it, another manuscript of the
Gul-badan on which Annette was at work. Annette for her part
saw that Henry’s absence in India would give her a golden
opportunity of rebuilding his house in Surrey. So on July 7, 1899,
Henry set off from Southampton. Five days later Annette signed
a contract for building work at Pitfold. The season was obviously
better chosen for Annette’s purpose of building than for Henry’s
purpose of travelling to India, but, as Henry often boasted, he
was indifferent to the seasons. Setting out in his 63rd year for
his Wander-Jahr in India, he wrote to Annette its justification:

S.S. Arabia, 7/7/99.

At least you can testify that my going out to India was no sudden
fancy but the crown of long deliberation. I felt that it was the work
that I was best fitted for and that it would be a sin, as Tennyson’s
Ulysses says, to spare myself and live in inglorious ease for a few
years longer. I cannot study continuously now and I think I have
given almost enough of my life to Abul Fazl, having as you know
given four or five years of tolerably hard work to him. When I come
back I think I shall take to gardening and to the calm serenity of an
Indian summer. Of course, I may, as Cardinal Newman nobly says
of himself, be under a strong delusion and be adopting as the right
course what is not so. But I must follow the Gleam (vide Tennyson’s
poem) and do what I can do. Jowitt in his old age and after all his
labours recorded that unless he did something more he must be held
to have failed. And I too feel that unless I can rescue these records
of Indian history, my life will have been more or less a blunder, as
my poor father said to my mother not long before his sudden death.

352

MiN/sr^

India Revisited

i opening letter dealt also with more practical
Cate that I have filled the cheroot case to-day by bu
Manilas from the steward/ 5 Thus Henry paraded his hard-
won liberty to smoke. “You will be glad to hear that my balance
at Grindlay’s was £505 on 24 June/ 5 This certainly was for
Henry at any time in his life a surprising figure, prompting
further investigation.

S.S. Arabia , Marseilles, 13/7/99.

I am so glad that you do not in your heart disapprove of my going
and that you sympathise with me. I have had a letter from Mrs. Goldie.
She has come across an old journal of her mother’s and has been struck
by finding how much her mother loved her. We Northerners are so
undemonstrative.

The balance at Grindlay’s is all right. It is their own figure, but I
can’t quite realise how the balance has mounted up to £500.

S.S. Arabia , 14/7/99.

I am sorry to say that after all I find I am mistaken about my
balance! The figures £505 are clear enough but they are on the wrong
side of the book and my real balance in June was £137 and not £505.
I feel much ashamed, but my comfort is that except in waiting to you
I have not acted as if I had £500 of a balance. ... I have plenty of
money with me for the voyage and for living in Bombay, and I have
Rs. 850 or so in Calcutta and also a claim for more. So I shall do very
well and now we shall say no more about money matters. It is not my
strong point. . . .

Annette’s response to this was to send £100 at once from her
account to Grindlay’s for Henry; while most grateful, he declared
that he would not need it and he did not.

Henry, arriving at Bombay near the end of July, spent nearly
four weeks there and then set out on his wanderings. They took
him from one end to the other of northern India, from Umarkot
in the west on the edge of the Rajputana desert to Calcutta in
the east, from Lahore and Patiala in the north to Gwtilior and
Bhopal in the centre and Hyderabad in the south. To Umarkot
Henry went, that he might see the birthplace of Akbar; to
Gwalior, that he might drive out to Antari and see Ahul Fazl’s
tomb. To Bhopal and Hyderabad he went as the guest of the
Indian rulers of those States or of old Indian friends who were
high in office there. The main part of his time he spent in the

353

India Called Them

region, between Jaipur and Ulwar west of Agra
■es and Patna on the middle Ganges.

If money was not Henry’s strong point, personal frugality
combined with generosity to others was. Both qualities were
illustrated on this pilgrimage. He travelled out second class,
which gave him the chance that he might not otherwise have
enjoyed of sitting at table opposite a fellow-passenger who
never opened his mouth except to put his knife into it. He sent
£2, as an old friend of her father’s, to a young lady in distress.
“She is a pretty girl but I think I would have done as much for
her if she had been ugly. I am sorry for her as she is likely to
become an orphan.” And when he reached Bombay at the end
of July he found a Temperance Hotel so cheap that, as he wrote,
“I am almost afraid to tell you what I pay lest you should conclude
that it is in the slums and not comfortable. But it is really quite
good. . . That there were slums to be found in Bombay
Henry knew well:

1 7/8/99

I feel sure that our native towns in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras
are a disgrace. We choose the best sites, put grand buildings on them
and huddle up all the rest. As if the body politic could flourish if any
extremity thereof be left in dirt and squalor. The European quarter
is like the electric light. It only throws into deeper shadow the
unlighted places.

The Bombay Temperance Hotel cost Henry Rs. 2£ (3s. 4d.) a
day for everything; he could have stayed a month for Rs. 60
GC4). When he reached Calcutta he managed to get taken for
Rs. 3 (4s.) a day; in reporting this to his son he stressed the fact
that though the address was Mango Lane, it was not really a
lane at all but a broad street, and he passed on for the comfort of
Annette that die rules of the house included a request that the
residents will dress for dinner. Between Bombay and Calcutta
pilgrim Henry lived chiefly in dak bungalows through the length
and breadth of northern India, varied by being entertained on
semi-royal terms by Indian friends. The dak bungalows cost
him abor t Rs. 4 (5s. 4d.) a day. The entertainment cost him
nothing but shame and the effort to keep up appearances.

In Rolnikund, as the guest of the Nawab’s Prime Minister,

354

India Revisited

§L

lyment of four quails for breakfast was marred p;
gret that Annette was not there to enjoy them even more,
and partly by the fact that “three Khitmutgars or rather one
Khansamah and two Khitmutgars bring the breakfast and stand
over me while I eat it.” He repayed this hospitality by taking
infinite trouble and enlisting Annette’s aid to find a school to
which his host’s boy might come in England.

3iM99-

The boy is healthy and intelligent and his father’s only fault with
him is that he is somewhat playful. Poor eleven years old! He would
fain have been a soldier, but it seems that is impossible. ... I think
it is a great risk sending a boy so young and I wonder what his mother
thinks about it. I never see her. . . .

In Bhopal, Henry was one of a large gathering to meet the
Viceroy.

Laurie’s Hotel, Allahabad, 14/11/99.

I am actually going to Bhopal. I will see the Viceroy and so perhaps
need not go to Simla and what is more to the point, I will please my
wife which St. Paul says is the thing that husbands chiefly think of.
I have written for Ram Yad but chiefly that I may get something done
for his eyes, and I will have to engage a khitmutgar here for I cannot
go to Bhopal -absolutely servantless.

Bhopal, Central India, 24/11/99.

I arrived here this morning and was received by Abul Jebbar’s
nephew and secretary. A carriage and pair drove me to the camp,
while an enormous shigram drawn by two camels on which rode two
helmeted syces conveyed my poor little baggage. There is a street of
tents and on one was my name. . . . Tomorrow comes Lady Curzon
from Jhansi way, and fifteen minutes later comes the Viceroy from
Jubbulpur. . . . Ram Yad is with me and I think that like his master
he will have to take a back seat among all these gorgeous liveries. . . .
The Doctor Missionary looked at his eyes and pronounced against
an operation.... I shall let Ram Yad go home after a time. I am glad
to have seen him and found that his eyes are better than I thought.

Bhopal, 27/11/99.

I am glad that I have come and I have seen n uch that is interesting
but I should not like such another tamasha and all through I have
felt sad that you and Tutu were not here instead of me. The thought

355

India Called Them

always been arising is that viceroyal visits cause imm
and expense without effecting commensurate good.

Henry’s pilgrimage involved many things that he delighted in
more than tamashas. He had the delights of the collector’s chase,
of memorable sights and chance encounters, of contriving
uncomfortable journeys, of being welcomed by old friends and
revisiting old scenes, of seeing India from a new angle. He had
the happy occupation of describing all this by letters to Annette
and the childrenln Surrey.

Henry had the delight of the collector’s chase. He did not find
for Annette a new manuscript of Gul-badan’s Humayun-Nama;
the nearest he got to that was finding at Udaipur, in response to
an advertisement, a manuscript described as Gul-badan’s but in
fact by another author. He had been going to telegraph success
to Annette; he had to write instead of failure. Some places, notably
Bombay which he described as a centre of Philistine commerce,
he drew wholly blank for MSS., but he bought there some Persian
printed books: “I have followed the example of whaling captains
who, when they cannot get whales, fill up their ships with seals.”
In other places he was more fortunate. He was able to make up
a good £100 worth of MS. and rare printed books for sale to
the India Office. He brought others home for use at Pitfold,

Henry had the delight of memorable sights and chance
encounters in a country where his mastery of languages made
him almost everywhere at home. There was a polite old
Mahomedan in a Bombay tram making room for Henry with
the remark: “you are old and I am old so we should sit together”;
Henry discovered the Mahomedan’s age as “four twenties and
two’* and giving his own as “three twenties and two” was hailed
as a hacha —no more than a boy. There was Victoria Garden,
where a young Mahomedan came and sat by Henry and quite
spontaneously sang an ode of Hafiz; he said he came from
Lucknow to visit his brother—a tram conductor— but Bombay
was a bad place and he would like to go back to Lucknow, only
the railway fare W'as heavy; one wonders —it is not recorded—
how much of the railway fare Henry volunteered. There was the
Navab of Amroha, who at first was suspicious of Henry as
having no introductions and wished him to communicate with
the police, but soon thawed, invited all the local notabilities to

356

MIN/Sr^

India Revisited

enry and bring their MSS., and with his son-in-law ac
eals with Henry—“the first time that I have had
liege of sitting down at table widi Mohamedans.’' There
was tlie breakwater at Back Bay, of which Henry never tired,
“with Malabar Hill dipping her well-clothed foot into the waves,
with the presence of men all round engaged in prayer to Mecca
or to the setting sun to give pathos to the scene.” There was the
hospital in Jaipur where Henry’s interest in all things human
led him to watch an operation on a small boy for stone. There
were burial-places and cemeteries galore; Henry had a passion
for cemeteries and for noting the pathetic youthfulness of most
who died in India. There was the Taj Mahal by moonlight, but
“I never go to these places without feeling that it is a shame that
I am seeing them all alone and wishing that the family could
enjoy them too.”

Henry had the delight of contriving uncomfortable journeys.
He started from Bombay with a thirty-three-hour railway
journey to Jaipur without sleeping accommodation. There was
plague about and Henry at one junction, while lying down resting,
was startled by a request to*give his hand for examination; he
was told for his comfort by a Parsee doctor that six people from
Poona had lately been taken out of that/train there, and that all
six died within twenty-four hours. There were connections to
be caught at four in the morning, and Henry’s method of catching
them was to sleep overnight in the station waiting-room. There
were trains which Henry took with nothing on them but a third
class, but the journey, he assured Annette of one such occasion,
“is only a short one.”

For much of Henry’s pilgrimage there were no trains at all.
He made many drives by pony carriage, of which one example
may suffice.

I drove out to the ancient city of Amroha in a sort of chai >banc
or shigram drawn by one small pony. The little beast took me the
whole distance (about 20 miles) in about four hours and it brought
me back yesterday in less than four hours! We should have got
sooner on Saturday if the cart had not capsized when about two
miles from Amroha. The harness was bad and the part which held
down the shafts suddenly broke. Up they went and I was tilted back
into the road. Luckily neither I nor the driver nor the pony nor the

357

India Called Them

inecl any damage—a piece of good fortune for whl
traveller cried upon me to give thanks to God.

To reach another ancient city, Umarkot, on the border of the
Rajputana desert, Henry made first a “dreadfully slow railway
journey from Hyderabad to Shadapalli, and then a twenty-four-
hour drive in a bullock-cart. He had meant to go in the same way
across the desert to a railway, but was told that it would take six
to ten days, that there was no water to be had, and there was
famine in the land. So he returned on the route he came, but for
speed substituted a camel for the bullock-cart.

I hope this will be my last experience of camel riding. It is well
enough when the camel walks, but when he, or she, trots, the joking
is awful. Natives use the expression shutuschil to express cowardice
and I realised the meaning of the expression on this journey. I never
saw any beast so timid and so apt to shy as our camel. She would not
pass a cart especially if the bullocks had bells and had to be led past.
I thought of Gulbadan and the camel who had not seen civilisation
for 70 generations.

Many travellers have described the discomforts of riding a
camel. It needed someone like Henry to think of Gul-badan and
to know that shutuschil means camelious. Henry’s account
continues.

We started at 4.45 p.m. and travelled by the moon and for an hour
or so after it till 12. Then the camel men explained in broken Hindu¬
stani that they were tired and hungry and proposed putting up in a
village. I agreed and we adjourned to a thana where the camel drivers
represented that I was a military sahib. A benevolent soul lent me a
charpoy and a rezai and I slept till 5.30 a.m. Then we started again
and got to Shadapalli by 8.20 where I had a delicious bath and breakfast
at the Guards (railway) running quarters. At 1.38 we started for
Kuthri, got there about 8 and saw the grand new bridge over the
Indus. Then slept in the waiting room till 2.30 a.m. and went back
to Lahore. We reached this at 10 a.m. on Friday, having started early
on Thursday, after losing 20 minutes owing to hot box, i.e. an axle
getting heated and smoking. I started off to the city to see my curiosity
dealer, but only to find that he had gone to Ferozpore.

So Henry set out later the same day to Agra. This particular
expedition meant four successive nights spent as follows:

358

India Revisited

day—On a camel, returning from Umarkot with re
a thana on a charpoy lent by a benevolent soul.
"Wednesday—In Kotliri station waiting-room till 2.30 a.m,
and then in train to Lahore.

Thursday—In train to Lahore.

Friday—In train from Lahore to Agra.

Henry had no sleeping compartment and was nearly 63.

*8L

These delightfully uncomfortable journeys were diversified for
Henry by many minor mishaps. Once he got out at the wrong
station and in doing so left his courier bag with all his money
hanging in the train; but with the aid of the telegraph and a pony
carriage he caught up with his bag, to find the station-master at
Benares making an inventory of its contents. On the same
journey he forgot to put any shirts in his portmanteau. Twice
when hanging out of the ticca gharry window to speak to the
driver he caught his watch chain in the Venetian blind of the
door and Annette’s locket disappeared into a slit, to be recovered
by surgical operations on the carriage panels. Once his whisky
flask leaked, through melting of the glue round the top, and the
spirit got over his visiting cards; Henry baked them in the sun
to get rid of the smell. Fortunately his sobriety was at all times
beyond suspicion.

The blind old bearer, Ram Yad, could hardly lower but did
not raise the average efficiency of the party. “He has got out of
the way of serving,” wrote Henry, “and has sent me off with a
pair of pajamas without a string and without any change of
towels. So I have been washing these in the hot water of my
bath and drying them in the glorious Indian sunshine.” When
the need for keeping up appearances at Bhopal for the Viceroy
was over, Henry parted with Ram Yad at Allahabad. “He w'as
tearful, but I am sure he was glad to go home.”

All these doings Henry reported to his daughter Tutu, with
a fitting final comment. “I don’t always fall upon my feet. I
sometimes fall upon my head, but then I am so constituted that
I don’t know the difference.”

Henry had the delight of being welcomed by old friends and
revisiting old scenes. At Bankipur he had the pleasant surprise of
finding their old khansamah Ali Jan installed as khansamah of

359

India Called Them

bungalow, still cherishing the photograph of the fai
vil, which he had got framed by the old joiner Punnoo.
i Jan’s wife had once benefited greatly by a medicine advised
by Annette; Henry asked Annette to send out the prescription
again as it had been lost. Bankipur was the nearest tiling to a
settled home—just three years together with their children—
that Henry and Annette had known in India. Nearly twenty years
later it was still full of old friends and their children; Henry
looked them all up and sent messages of love to Annette.

In Calcutta, where Henry arrived on Christmas Eve, the first
thing that he saw on crossing the bridge was the “glimmering
square” of the tablet which a dozen years before Annette had
put up to those lost in the shipw'reck of the Sir John Lawrence .
He took a walk to Ballygunge and suddenly in fog came on the
linden tree outside the old house on which the children used to
climb: the Ballygunge Cricket Club found Henry out and their
President brought him a beautiful bouquet and a subscription
book. He dined with an old Indian friend, Amir Ali, married to
an English lady: “it is a 19th century edition of Othello and
Desdemona and so Othello is a man of books and Desdemona
has intellect and training and holds her own.” He travelled from
Calcutta to Ranaghat in Nuddia to see another old friend of a
different sort—James Monro and his medical mission. 1

15/1/00.

We sat down some 16 to dinner. . . . There are some three
dispensaries attached to the mission and the men’s and women’s
hospital. Monro is certainly doing a good work . . . but it would
not suit us. It is as well perhaps that Monro is under no delusion as
to the prospect of Christianising the people. His view is that he and
all Chris? ians have been commanded to deliver their message, and
when they have done this they are justified. The responsibility of
accepting or rejecting the message lies with the hearers.

Mrs. Monro is an invalid but she still does all the housekeeping from
her couch. She desired to be most kindly remembered to you and so
did her husband. ... He looks well and strong —white-haired and
rubicund of visage. I came aw r ay touched and interested but still with
the feeling that there was no rest for the sole of the feet of either you
or me in Ranaghat. We work our work, they theirs, as Ulysses says.

» See Note to Epilog" below, p. 393.

360

India Revisited

*8L

ily, Henry in this pilgrimage had the delight of seeing
^^Mxtiad always at heart wanted to see India, coming not as~an
alien ruler hut as a wandering scholar. He saw many places that
he had never seen before and he saw them all differently. He had
leisure in his wanderings for many thoughts. “They have a
brownish tinge, to borrow an expression of Gibbon in his auto¬
biography, yet they are salutary and I think it is good for one
to be alone with one’s thoughts sometimes.” So he wrote to
Annette just before Christmas Day in Lucknow.

21/12/99.

Of all things I think we should not be afraid of being alone with
our thoughts. It is then that we see life as it really is and with the
blinkers off. . . .

To change the subject and to give a brighter turn to our thoughts,
don’t you think that you and I might write together ... a life of
Akbar? . . . Your pen is lighter and brighter than mine and could
do the descriptive parts. I would work down below in the mine and
bring up the gold for you to polish and to give a proper setting so
that it may be worthy of a Queen’s wrist.

For the present I have ended my Ulysses-like wanderings. ... I
am thankful that I have been privileged to see the birth-place of Akbar
and the graves of Anarkali, Abul Fazl, and Badayuni.

In thinking his own thoughts Henry never ceased to think
with and for Annette and his children.

To Annette he wrote, of course, continually about her literary
work. He encouraged her about the rebuilding of Pitfold:

5 / 8 / 99 -

I am sure to like the alterations; I have always said that all your
alterations were improvements. I am sorry that the house is in such
a bad state, but with you at the helm all will get right in time. What
fear of storm says Sadi when Noah is the pilot.

He fell in at once with a suggestion that Pitfold should be
transferred from him to his son, though in the end this was not
done. He gave sage, if cryptic, advice about the bees, whose
malpractices of various kinds were one of Annette’s minor
worries.

21/7/99-

I am so sorry to hear that you got stung. There is a proverb you
know about one man’s being able to steal a horse and another not

361

MINI STff

India Called Them

'i'

able to look over the hedge. But the moral of this is not;
much considered. This certainly is that the second man should not
look over the hedge.

And he made a characteristic apology for the length of his
letters.

7/1/00.

I feel sometimes that with your deafness, and my awkwardness and
uncouthness, I am nearer to you on paper than in person, and so I go
on writing interminable screeds to you.

To his daughter Tutu, besides recording his mishaps and his
occasional good deeds (such as writing hjs name at Government
House), he wrote approving her proposal to go to Somerville.
“For myself,” he added, “not having been able to contend success¬
fully with my contemporaries, I am still less able to cope with
the much cleverer and more highly equipped rising generation.”

To his son Will at Oxford he wrote commending the son’s
projected visit to Toynbee Hall; he revealed that he had once
been sufficiently interested to go there himself and had been
puzzled by the porter’s pronunciation of “Balliol. House” there.
“I hope you will be touched by it, and indeed I am sure you will.”
Balliol led Henry’s mind to Magdalen and so to a plan for pleasing
Annette through her son.

In Macmillan’s Magazine for 1893 there is a delightful poem by the
Warden of Magdalen entitled Virgilium Vidi, his Virgil being
Tennyson. I saw some time ago that the Warden had collected his
verses and published them. If the Virgilium Vidi is among them, as
it is almost sure to be, would you please buy the book and present
it to your mother in my name. If it is not among them, please get her
a copy of the Macmillan I have referred to, or if this is impossible
copy out the poem for her in your neatest of hands and send it to
her. . . . Remember what a success we scored with “Aready.”

In their childish years Henry had filled his children’s minds
continually with pleasant images of beauty in nature. As they
grew older he shared with them the beauty, the interest and the
wisdom that he found in books.

“Among the good gifts that one receives,” he wrote to his
daughter Tutu at this time, “that of the introduction to a fine
poem or a good book surely deserves special remembrance. I

362

India Revisited

,,/remember how in the remote district of Bankipur ^
^^jsfer, Mr. Collinson, now I believe in South Africa, first
brought to my notice Swinburne’s wonderful chorus about the
Spirit of Man ip Atalanta in Calydon. In the beginning of his
meditations Marcus Aurelius gives a curious list of his intellectual
debts, but I do not remember that he mentions books. They
were not so common in his day, and oral instruction was more
prevailing.”

“Macaulay,” Henry wrote at the same time to his son, “quotes
from Swift: No man ever made a bad figure in life who under¬
stood his own talents or a good one who didn’t. And Macaulay
adds that every day gives us fresh proof of the truth of this
pregnant maxim. But alas! this self-knowledge is about the last
thing one learns and.generally only when it is too late and when
one has played one’s part. That you may know the saying before
it is too late, I quote it to you, but the application must rest with
yourself.”

This son, during part of Henry’s wander-year, was in Norway
on a reading party by a fishing river. Henry wrote:

I hope that you will enjoy Norway and, if you don’t catch many
fish, you may console yourself with the happiness of the fish in having
escaped your snares. Swift said that when he was a boy he caught a
trout and that he had just brought it to the top of the water, when it
broke away and escaped. He says the bitterness of the disappointment
followed him all through life. A larger and more Christian view
might have led him to sympathy with the fish and to rejoice at its
escape. As Wordsworth sings,

One lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide,

Taught both by what she shows, and what conceals,
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.

Henry himself never fished or hunted or shot for pleasure.

misr^

As happy as so old a person can he.

Henry to Annette about Jemima at 88,
June 8, 1883.

misr/f

Chapter XX

FULL CIRCLE

H ENRY left India for the last time in the middle of
February 1900. Coming all the way by sea to London,
stopping at Italian ports, he was forty days on the journey.
He reached England from India for the last time on April 2,1900.

He and Annette had still nearly thirty years to live, but how
they lived diem does not come into this story, except in briefest
summary.

Henry and Annette saw their daughter Jeannette married to
the son of dieir friend and fellow-scholar of die Indian Service,
to a college friend of their own son Will. They saw that son not
marrying, pursue what Henry might have thought as devious a
course as that of his own father of Inzievar—through the Bar,
social service, journalism, the Civil Service, university adminis¬
tration. Once that son, going to Germany in an Oxford vacation
for solitary reading, urged his father to come with him. “I should
like to go,” wrote Henry to Annette; “I think I know my
daughter but I should like to know more of my son.” But,
indeed, Henry understood his son well enough.

By their son, Henry and Annette were introduced to the joys
of motoring, in its early experimental days. Henry did not take
to it. Annette enjoyed it immensely, and never found any journey
too long or its adventures alarming. It was a form of companion¬
ship with her children in which, as many years before she had
noted about riding, she did not feel the disadvantage of her
deafness.

This disadvantage grew upon her, till she turned it into an
a dvantage. In the first years at Pitfold she had used speaking-
tubes, including a five-tailed monster that spread itself for general
conversation over the dinner table. At 60 she decided to learn
dp-reading as an alternative. At 70 conversation with her came
to involve writing to her, but it never ceased, on her part, to
be very lively conversation. If Annette was in a room she was
Part of any conversation there; she was utterly undefeated by
deafness. And one of the advantages of written conversation

3^5

India Called Them

4 at she could take it away with her, and enjoy it twice
86th year, attending a graduation party at the London
School of Economics where the Prince of Wales of that time
was the principal guest and Jelly d’Aranyi played, she came away
with a complimentary remark signed “Edward P.”

There was a moment when she was threatened with loss of all
communication. She was all but completely deaf, and one eye
had long been completely clouded. Then the other eye began to
go. Annette, little short of 80, went with cheerfulness and complete
confidence into an operation for cataract which must mean that
for two or three days at least no message could reach her. She
had survived at 73 a major abdominal operation. She had no
doubt of as good a result this time and her faith was justified.

Henry and Annette saw the First World War in and out
together. Early in the war Henry, at 78, volunteered to be a
Special Constable in London, and made exhausting journeys to
and from Hindhead to guard a gas-works near Shepherd’s Bush,
till the kindly authorities told him that, with others coming
forward, he was no longer needed. But they did not retire him;
they placed him on the reserve and requested him to retain his
baton. So he settled down with Annette, at first in Pitfold, then,
as domestic staff ebbed away, in the gardener’s cottage. There
they read many books together; among others they recorded the
reading together in 1916 of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius .
There they kept on working, together and separately, Henry at
the interminable Owl, Annette at her new translation of the
Babur-Nama from the Turki text.

With this work they were always content: happy to see friends
and children, not unhappy when alone. They consumed the
smoke of their advancing years themselves.

Henry’s translation of Abul Fazl was finished in 1921. There¬
after, at 84, he took no new task, but occupied himself with
errata, index and addenda. Annette’s translation of the Babur-
Nama was published in four sections, making two stout volumes,
in 1922, when she was 80. She set herself at once to fresh writing
tasks, and was preparing a revision of the Babur-Nama up to
the day of her final illness.

Aftei the First World War Henry and Annette came to share
their son’s home in Kensington. The Introduction to Henry’s

366

Full Circle

<SL

tion of the Akbar-Nama is dated from there. 1 But
give up Pitfold completely. It was the one lasting home
they had made, and after two or three years in Kensington
Henry, at 88, returned to it.

Though lie had come to London to be with Annette and
their son, he did not like the smoke and fogs, and when he had
-.done with the Owl at last, he had no more need of libraries.
He discovered a nurse attendant—already of pensionable age
though twenty years his junior—whose sufficient great happiness
it became to look after him. He persuaded himself that by going
to live in Pitfold he could still do something useful; by occupying
the house he could keep it fit for occupation.

So Henry went back to independent camping life in the half-
empty country house, and there came back a curious echo of
past arguments as to how he and Annette could be together.
Henry at 88 adjured Annette to resume married life with him in
Pitfold. But Annette, six years younger than Henry, was still
working at her books and needing libraries. Annette wanted also
to be with her son, and his work tied him to London. Annette
rightly feared the difficulties of country house-keeping in the
post-war years.

The solution found for this problem made for the greatest
happiness of both. Henry was in charge of Pitfold; Annette made
London her centre but went at week-ends and for holidays to see
him. Henry could never give up wanting to look after Annette,
if she was with him; wanting, if she entered the room, to rise
and greet her and make her comfortable; but after 85 rising is
not easy. Henry could not communicate with her save by writing;
after 85 writing began to be a burden. After 85 the days from one
week-end to another slip W unnoticed. Henry and Annette saw
one another enough for happiness. The bond of mutual need and
mutual help that had held these two so close together for fifty
years began to loosen before it should break in death; this
happens probably for most old people. Extreme old age became
for both of them a time for retracing their steps in time. It is so
for most people.

1 Though Henry finished his work on the Akbar-Nama at the age of 84 in 1921, the
last volume of the work was not published till 1939, ten years after his tie ith. This, as
explained in the prefatory note to this publication, was due to a “period t i quiescence
in the activities of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

367

misr^

India Called Them

e than one of the notes used here describing ever
’s childhood or of his youth in India were written down
by him in his late eighties. He delighted in these years to discover
forgotten kinsfolk. He wished to celebrate his golden wedding
with a newspaper announcement of the unromantic ceremony
under Act III of 1872 and of how Annette had come to India under

inspiration of the Brahmo Samaj; Annette did not want publicly
to revive these particular memories; there arose the last of their
characteristic discussions, ending in the usual reconciliation, with
the final trick taken by Annette. She for her part took up, at 86,
as almost the last thing she did, while she could do anything,
the care of her father’s grave at Stourbridge. She went back in
her last year to join Henry at Pitfold. From there she and Henry
together returned to their son’s care in London in the last

months of all.

Annette, living half-way through her 87th year, survived
nearly all her kin and her early friends. Only the much younger
second family of William Akroyd outlasted her.

Henry survived all his kin: David dying in 1905 at 77,
Phemie dying at the same age two years later, Allie reaching all
but 81 in 1916, last of all in 1927 that one of the rich fair cousin-
hood of Dunfermline on whom, so rumour had it, young Henry
had once cast his eye. Now old Henry and old Janey set them¬
selves to outlast one another and Henry won.

In the same year at last rest called Henry and Annette both,
as India once had called them. Annette, younger of the two by
more than five years, was the first to go on March 29, 1929,
3:alf-way through her 87th year, after six months of illness and
need of professional care. Henry never needed such care; like a
coin of pure gold, he wore thinner and thinner with time, till at
last he wore out. In his son’s house in Kensington during his last
months, his memory travelled back to the time before the
children, before Annette, before Jeanie; his thoughts dwelt for
choice upon his twenties in India and the companionship there
of his brother Allie. His son had something of the appearance of
Allie; often Henry would address his son as if the son were
Alli e, recalling youthful adventures and romance. When cor¬
rected, he would realize: “Of course, my dear fellow, you’re
Will, I know.” But in a moment he was back again to Allie;

368

WHIST/?

Full Circle

jWl quite clear but like a child that says “let's pretenc^J^j
ted his son to pretend to be the brother of the uncloudec
twenties which at the end he remembered best. Henry, with all
his force of mind, was never anything but a child at heart.

In the diary which for that year 1929 his son, then busy in
the University of London, kept, in the book which Annette
had bought for that year but could not use herself, the last record
of Henry stands:

Friday, 8 November: Just before Finance Committee heard
that H.B. was very ill—thought pneumonia—doctor not to be
reached. Got back about 6 and found Tutu. Doctor came about
9—said he w r ould not recover consciousness but might last the
night or 48 hours. At 9.55 a sudden change—a little cry—and
he went quietly—with an instant change from struggle to peace.

0 > „

369

MIN/Sr^

Considering what the lives and actions of most of our so-
called Indian heroes really were and the circumstances in
which our Indian empire wasformed) it is no doubt better for
individual reputations and even for the fame of our country
that the waves of obscurity and forgetfulness should con¬
tinue to engulf much of our Eastern annals .... The history
ofour Indian empire is pre-eminently that of the actions of
ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances.

Henry Beveridge in article on “Warren Hastings in

Lower Bengal” (Calcutta Review , October 1877).

It is a common remark that authors feel towards their books
like parents to their children, but there is this difference
that authors generally do not have a superior affection for
their first-born.

Article on “Jean Jacques Rousseau” (Calcutta
Review , October 1878).

The tendency to magnify the past at the expense of the
present is hardly more respectable than the meanness of
which we are all occasionally guilty, of praising dead men
at the expense of those whom we have with us.

Article on “The City of Patna” (Calcutta Review , April 1883)

When we go to one of our old cemeteries andfind how nearly
every Englishman or Englishwoman died in the morning
of their lives, we see what a price we have paid for our
Indian empire. It is easy for us now with sufficient salaries
and a settled Government to marvel at the deeds of our
Anglo-Indian Nawabs, but we cannot forget that we have
taken up their inheritance. Caesar s unprovoked aggression
upon Britain led to the civilisation of the country, and Clive
and Hastings’ spoliations have resulted in British India .

Article on “The Patna Massacre” (Calcutta Review,
October 1884).

EPILOGUE

A T the end of his first book—on the History and Statistics
of the District of Bakarganj —Henry Beveridge, my
father, added a chapter of General Remarks and a Note
to General Remarks. These additions drew the fire of critics
as irrelevant and out of place and out of harmony with pre¬
vailing views. It will, I hope, be regarded as natural and not out
of place that, in concluding this study of my parents, I should
follow my father’s example, and add an Epilogue of General
Remarks and a Note to the Epilogue, referring to some of my
father’s contemporaries in India.

When I began my study of my father’s and mother’s letters
I knew very little about these two people in the most important
and interesting period of their lives. This was not because I had
no chance of knowing. I was never far from my parents during
all their later time in Britain; even when I was in London working
while they were in Surrey, I saw them and talked to them nearly
every week-end; towards the end of their time they lived in my
house, as I in the beginning of my time had lived in theirs. I
could have learned from them by word of mouth all that is in
this volume and much that is now lost and that I should like to
know. I failed to learn simply because I was absorbed in my
own life and activities. I took my parents for granted, as we all
do. But happily they were both letter-keepers as well as admirable
letter-writers. I have been able, after their death, to know my
parents far better than I knew them in their lives.

This book is first and foremost a study of their characters.
It is second a study of family life in an unusual setting—the
British adventure in India. It deals with that adventure, not as
an affair of pomp' and power, but in its influence on the lives of
those who undertook it, not as leaders or for a season, but as
their journeyman vocation. It shows as warp and -woof of this
life separation and sickness; the difficult choices that had to be
made; how difficulties of all kinds were lightened by mutual
help of kinsmen, friends and strangers. It is an illustration from
real life of what Thackeray wrote in a romance. It is a contribution
to what one of 7 hackeray s kinsmen, a younger contemporary of

371

WHlSTff

India Called Them

in India, described as the necessary basis for u
of the British adventure: “British-Indian history
fitten again on the basis of private memoirs .” 1

What a strange pathos seems to me to accompany all our
Indian story! Besides that official history which fills Gazettes,
and embroiders banners with names of victory; which gives
moralists and enemies cause to cry out at English rapine; and
enables patriots to boast of invincible British valour—besides
the splendour and conquests, the wealth and glory, the crowned
ambition, the conquered danger, the vast prize, and the blood
freely shed in winning it—should not one remember the tears,
too ? Besides the lives of myriads of British men, conquering on
a hundred fields, from Plassey to Meanee, and bathing them
cruore nostro: think of the women, and the tribute which they
perforce must pay to those victorious achievements. Scarce a
soldier goes to yonder shores but leaves a home and grief in it
behind him. The lords of the subject province find wives there:
but their children cannot live on the soil. The parents bring their
children to the shore, and part from them. The family must be
broken up. Keep the flowers of your home beyond a certain time,
and the sickening buds wither and die. In America it is from the
breast of a poor slave that a child is taken: in India it is from the
wife, and from under the palace, of a splendid proconsul.*

If I have done my task of selection and arrangement even
tolerably, my father stands out, through his own unstudied
words, as a fine spirit and lovable character in relation to another
fine spirit in many ways different from him but complementary.
Each of them, moreover, in words which my father used of my
mother but which apply equally to him, was a high and vehement
nature. In deciding to marry after having met only five times
before, they took a gallant risk.

My mother always used to say that she never really loved my
father till after she had married him and as she got gradually to
know him. What she wrote to him shows that this was true.
Her letters to him in the three weeks of their engagement are
hardly love letters at all; most of them are slightly fractious
arguments about arrangements by a person with many affairs on
her hands. Even eighteen months after marriage, while declaring

i Preface to The Ritchies in India, by Gerald Eitehie Gohn Murray, 1910, p. ix).

» The Ne\ccomes, Chap, V.

371

Epilogue

e, my mother could write with a curious detacf
;ve a double sentiment as of a happiness attained and a
anger escaped in our marriage, because it would have been so
easy to have differed much or to have been indifferent.” Her real
love letters come later—in full and overflowing measure. After
four years she wrote: “I do not want anything except to be with
you.” After seven years: “Every year binds me closer and more
inextricably to you,” and “there are great unexplored regions in
your thoughts that I want to traverse.” After fifteen years: “I
do not know when you will come but I look for you as those
who look for the morning.” After forty years, in the close war¬
time companionship of life in their gardener’s cottage, her diary
records: “Read Marcus Aurelius together with great content.”

On my father’s side too, at the beginning, there were senti¬
ments of pity and of knight-errantry that are not love; his first
letter offered her an imperfect gift. Later he confessed that when
he married her he had believed that the flame of passion in him
was dead. But he tried to cancel his letter about the imperfect
gift at once; “every day I love you more and more.” From that
day onwards the love letters came repeatedly. After four years:
“You took the confusion out of my life and kalcidoscoped the
jarring fragments of thought and action.” After nine years, in
their first long separation: “Now that you are really coming
and that an outburst of feeling won’t make you unhappjr and
think that you should come at once, I feel inclined to tell you
how my heart cries out for you at times.” Two years after,
looking back on this first separation, in a second separation, he
asked: “Why do I miss you so much more this time than in
1884?” And so on and so on. After eighteen years: “I love you
in every way.” After twenty-four years he was conspiring with
his son to give pleasure to Annette by copying out for her a
poem which had pleased him, and was proposing to Annette
collaboration in a book where he would work in the mine below
and she with her lighter pen would give the artistic touch.

In an equal marriage, with little previous knowledge of one
another, my father and my mother took an equal chance. The
unity achieved by two strong personalities rested on mutual
recognition of functions. Each, of course, recognized the
absolute right of the other to expression of opinion on any

373

India Called Them

ct; notably my father never made his longer experier
a reason for suggesting that my mother had not as good a
right as he to express her opinion on Indian problems as publicly
as she desired, even when she opposed him. On the other hand,
though my mother did not in the end see eye to eye with my
father on Indian problems, she never reproached him for not
making a more prosperous career. She thought it more important
that he should be himself than that he should be successful.

Where practical decisions had to be taken one way or another,
there came to be an agreed allocation of spheres of influence.
My mother accepted absolutely without repining my father’s
decisions as to retiring or not retiring, or as to choice of station,
in so far as he had a choice; she learned, though not without
repining, to accept his refusals to leave work for holiday in the
hills. On the other hand the children were her sphere; even on
the difficult problem of their religious education and observance
—a matter on which my father felt strongly—she got her way.
And when my father’s service in India was over, the choice of
where to live was my mother’s rather than his. He threw out
suggestions about going to Scotland and to the end of his days
maintained that he had not lost his Scottish domicile because he
intended to return to Scotland some time. But he threw out from
time to time other happy thoughts, such as settling in Oxford
or Geneva or Dresden or elsewhere in Europe, with equal
seriousness or want of seriousness. He was content to leave this
matter to my mother because he would be happy anywhere
with her and the children and books.

My mother in her later years appeared to the unobservant an
imperious lady. To those who knew her only in England, it may
be surprising to learn from her letters how submissive she was
to my father in India, how she trembled at his frown, and sat
up all night to answer his reproof. The explanation is simple.
The things that were in my father’s sphere of decision—his
work and where it should be done—were by this time in the
past in India. The practical matters to be decided in England
were in my mother’s sphere.

My mother, being a woman, was, of course, a practical creature.
But she spent relatively little of her time and energy in the
practices in which so many women, of choice or of necessity,

374

VIQNV i°

Henry at j 6

Photo: Bcres/ord

MIN/Sr^

Annette at jo

Epilogue

item in her day and spend them now—in shopping
pial domestic tasks. Shopping, in the days of her courf
"named to my father as one of her pet aversions; it became a
delight only when it came to mean expeditions with the children.
Buttons and darning, in the first months of marriage, she named
to my father as part of her new profession and she took that as
she took all tasks seriously. But it did not remain one of her
normal tasks; European life in India was life widi an overflowing
abundance of service and could hardly have been carried on
without it. Transporting the children to and fro from India and
securing lodging, care and teaching for them in England required
immense energy and organizing power, but did not require that
my mother should become a seamstress or a cook. When she
found that she could actually teach crochet to the Countess of
Noer she marked the event by an exclamation mark, in reporting
it to my father. I have no recollection of her ever cooking a
meal, though of course she would have taught herself to do so
had it been needful. My mother was a woman but not first and
foremost a housewife. She had a pen in her hands far more often
than a frying-pan or a needle.

For both my parents books were the background of their life.
In their later days each of them was absorbed intellectually on a
specialized writing task—my father on Abul-Fazl “The Owl,”
and my mother on Gul-Badan and the Babur-Nama. To those
who knew them only in these days, as in the main I did till after
their deaths I saw their letters, it may be surprising to find how
various as well as perpetual was their reading.

The letters of their earlier years show them both reading
incessantly—histories, travels, biographies, novels, philosophy,
poetry, sermons—sharing their readings and relating their
experiences to what they read; they compared or contrasted
themselves or the people they met in the flesh with the people
they met in books,' whether of fancy or of fact. The Britain
covered by this record of my parents with their parents has been
illumined by a succession of great novelists—Jane Austen,
Thackeray, Dickens, the Brontes, George Eliot, Anthony
Trollope, George Meredith—holding the mirror of fiction up to
nature. This record sometimes .urns to me like holding the
mirror of nature up to fiction.

375

India Called Them

other once likened the youthful aspirations with
ent to India to those of Dorothea Brooke in devc
to Dr. Casaubon; my father was fond of comparing her
to Romola, with myself as die child Lillo. For my father, there
is a parallel to another famous character of fiction—Colonel
Newcome; many of those who knew and liked my father have
said this of him.

“He had a natural simplicity, an habitual practice of kind and
generous thoughts.” These words of Thackeray fit my father to
a hair. He w r as as transparently honest as the day and he could
afford to be. Which of us could bear to have every act, almost
every thought, laid bare as I have done for him in this volume,
with the certainty that every fresh revelation would only make
us seem dearer and better, with nothing for which we need
blush?

My fadier, like Colonel Newcome, was the soul of honour,
self-judging and self-reliant. Commenting to my mother on a
famous case in English political life, he wrote to her: “I begin
to think better of Dilke, but no man should leave questions
involving his honour to the judgment of friends. He should
decide them himself.”

My father, like Colonel Newcome, never forgot a poor
relation. He was a helper of lame dogs and strays; as some houses
are said to be marked in chalk by the confraternity of tramps as
places where a kindly reception can be expected, so there was
something in my father’s face which made him the resort of
strangers in a difficulty. He delighted, as he once said, to exercise
compassion. There was in his first approach to my mother, in the
defeat of her Indian mission, at least a touch of the same
motive of rescue which led Colonel Newcome to give shelter to
Mrs. Casey. Compassion is a dangerous guide in choosing 3
mate; providentially, since Annette was to live, not die con¬
veniently like Mrs. Casey, she w'as a creature of very different
metal from the foolish mother of Clive.

In smaller matters, such as clothing, Henry’s attitude was
exactly that of Colonel Newcome:

“I say, Kean, is that blue coat of mine very old ?”
“Uncommon white about the seams, Colonel,” says the man.

376

Epilogue

’s/it older than other people’s coats?”—Kean is oblige
rely to confess that the Colonel’s coat is very queer.

Get me another coat then—see that I don’t do anything or
wear anything unusual. I have been so long out of Europe, that
I don’t know the customs here, and am not above learning.”

!§L

This conversation between the Colonel and his valet must
have had many parallels between Henry and his bearer Ramyad.
Henry’s attitude to women was also that of Colonel Newcome:
“the dear old boy fancies every woman is a beauty.” So was his
lack of pomposity. Colonel Newcome, at the theatre with the
children, ate an orange with perfect satisfaction; Henry once
shocked his schoolboy son horribly by munching an apple in a
London omnibus, as he shocked the head waiter at a smart
London restaurant by asking for jam and tea in the middle of
a six-course dinner.

With these similarities there were differences. Whereas Colonel
Newcome was entirely ignorant of books except those few
which formed his travelling library, my father read everything
and remembered what he read. Colonel Newcome dreamed
vainly of reading the classics with his son; my fadier taught
Greek to his son and remained always the better scholar of the
two. And though it is probably true of my father as of Colonel
Newcome that in practical matters “if he had lived to be as old
as Jahaleel a boy could still have cheated him,” in matters of the
mind lie had a ruthless critical judgment; in his letters to Annette
he spared neither foolish books nor foolish persons. And, as he
said himself, he was wholly unsentimental about criminals.

My father, again, was utterly without any conventional
snobbery; he would never have said as Colonel Newcome did
that “a young man whose father may have to wait behind me
at dinner, should not be brought into my company.” My father
would have thought that such a possibility added to the pro¬
spective friendliness of any party. He took a wicked pi easure
sometimes in reminding Annette that her father had been a
tanner, and in parading his grandfather the baker. But then, my
father was a Scot.

As I have mentioned the delicate' subject of social class, I may
add a few comments on it. Both my father and my modier came
° slc “-k which may rightly be described as middle class; meaning

377

MiNisr^

India Called Them

J§L

/jM t, people who have to work for their livings but wo?

'uie under their own direction, not under orders of another,
and not to trade union hours. There is not a trace of aristocracy
in any of their forbears; armorial bearings were far from them.
So also was the horny hand of toil. My four great-grandfathers
were respectively a master-baker in the ancient Scottish city of
Dunfermline; a supervisor of excise in the smaller Scottish
town of Linlithgow; a livery-stable keeper in the small Midland
town of Stourbridge; and, I think but am not sure, a stone¬
mason in Birmingham. But each of the four had something
special about him.

The master-baker—David Beveridge—was elected Deacon of
Baxters, that is to say, leader of his trade association, at the age
of 24, and Convener of all the Dunfermline trades two years
later; he was clearly a remarkable young man.

The supervisor of excise—Alexander Watt—having been
trained for the Ministry, showed that he had a mind of his own,
by insisting on conscientious scruples and by giving up his
calling.

The livery-stable keeper of Stourbridge—Joseph Walford—
was the first to introduce his townsfolk to die new-fangled device
of a funeral hearse in place of a bier.

Of my fourth great-grandfather, James Bates or Akroyd of
Birmingham, though I am not quite sure how he earned his
living, I know many things more important. I know that he
lived"and worked in very humble circumstances brought on by
his own independence. He was a family rebel and a political
lebel, ran away from home and rejected his father’s name,
called himself a Jacobin and impressed on his own son two things
above all, that every individual should be independent himself
and diat every individual owed a duty to the state. Having c °‘ rie ’
through his mother, from a family long established in t)j2"west
Riding—generation after generation of farmers, clothiers,
merchants, always in the will-making class-James Akroyd
himself dropped out of this class to become a wage-earner. 1 o
this class his son William Akroyd, having begun work as a
journeyman currier for wages, very soon, by his native energy,
restored himself and his successors.

Tliis middle clas of independent workers—farmers, merchants,

378

Epilogue

epers, sea-captains, doctors, lawyers and other profes

as they arose—was a natural, though not, of course, an exclusive
breeding-ground of individualism, in affairs and in religion.
That is its outstanding merit. That is why it is important in one
form or another to keep a place for this way of life and work in
future.

With its merits this class is apt in individual cases to show
certain weaknesses. One is that it has not as a rule a high resistance
to demoralization by the wealth that every now and again
falls to the lot of some of its members. My mother’s elder
sister, having married a barrister rich enough to be contentedly
briefless and to stand unsuccessfully for Parliament, once sneered
at her step mother as a tailor’s daughter with education; she
herself was a tanner’s daughter who had been to college, though
my father always declared that she had failed of education. My
father’s only wealthy uncle—Erskine I of the family table,
founder of the rich branch of the house of B—objected to his
daughter’s marrying a curate, on the two grounds that the curate
was poor and was the son of an Irish gaoler; yet he himself was
the son of a baker and had begun work as apprentice to a
draper.

It is an illustration of the weakness of the middie-class when
first it attains wealth, that this most successful son of David
Beveridge the baker apparently did little to help his two elder
brothers when they were both low together, as Jemima would
have put it. At the time of Henry the elder’s greatest extremity
in 1850, a letter of his rich brother Erskine to their sister Elizabeth

in Australia giving family news, merely tells her that of Henry
and. Henry’s family he has seen and heard nothing for a long
time, but understands that Henry has now some employment
with a Glasgow publisher. Of Robert, who also had been in
financial trouble, Erskine reports, with equal detachment, that
he has now found employment in a bank near London. The firs;
Erskine was a dynamic creature, of great public spirit and an
acknowledged benefactor of his native lown. When as a boy he
offered to sign a petition against slavery and was told that he was
too young, he asked if there were no boy slaves on whose behalf
he might sign. When he died, every shop in Dunfermline was
< -h ) sed on the day of his funeral. Yet it is clear that he did not

379

India Called Them

, easy to part with his new wealth. It was left to his

_ after his death to splash his money in building the large

house in which his son was so hospitable later. In the first genera¬
tion from David of Dunfermline it was left to the poor branches
of the House of B. to help themselves and one another.

1 o my father, helping poor relations was the one luxury from
which he could not be parted, and my mother was both too wise
and too generous to discourage him. She liked contriving
pleasures for others as much as he did. When she quarrelled with
my father about spending, as every now and again she did
quarrel, it was for spending on something she thought un¬
necessary for themselves—a carriage or a doctor. In the end, in
spite of all adjurations by my mother, my father never saved
any money. By the time he ended he had parted even from most
of his books, except those with a family association. His will

was sworn at £82. He went out of the world with almost as
few possessions as those with which he entered it. That is because
in his youth, when he earned more than enough for his own
needs, he maintained his mother and sister at home; because
later he spent without reserve upon his children.

Consideration of the stock from which my parents came and
of what has happened to it suggests another general observation.
When the generation to which I belong is finished there will, in
the next generation, be few descendants in Britain of David and
Margaret Beveridge of Dunfermline, less than twenty altogether
in the fourth generation after these two. But there will be many
such descendants, more than a hundred in that generation and
many more to follow them, in Canada, New Zealand and, above
all, Australia; of the few in Britain, most will come from a grand¬
daughter of, David and Margaret who, marrying in Canada,
brought six children back with her to Scotland after their father’s
death. So on my mother’s side the stock of William Akroyd of
Stourbridge seems doomed to extinction in Britain, but there will
be large families of his descendants in New Zealand and in the far
west of Cana a. The stocks from which my parents came have
dwindled woefully in their home country. But like the British
race as a whole they have spread and multiplied and renewed
their vigour in the new homes overseas.

Consideration of my parents themselves suggests two con-

380

Epilogue

is^ first, how little worldly success has to do with abi'

second, how little happiness depends on worldly success.

My father entered the service of India by open competition at
the head of his year. He had a fine intelligence, an artistic sensi¬
tiveness to beauty in words and nature, untiring industry, good
health, and devotion to his adopted country. Yet he never rose
to the head of his profession. His forecast to my mother just
before he married her, that he would never be higher in die
service than he stood then was all but literally fulfilled. At the
end of seventeen years in India he was a District and Sessions
Judge; after thirty-five years he retired with that rank. He was
never in or near the inner chambers of die Government of India
or in a position of influence beyond a narrow district. In one of
die outspoken articles by which from time to time my father
impeded his professional career, he spoke of men who “bestride
the poor land of India like Colossi in touch with it only at the
two points of Simla and Calcutta, and sublimely regardless of all
that lies between.” 1 My father himself was never at Simla, the
summer seat of the Indian Government. He was in Calcutta
only for four years in his thirty-five, and then not concerned
with central affairs but with a district between the capital and
the sea. His life was spent in the lands between, in die plains
dominated and turned into swamps each year by the great rivers.
He began in Mymensing on the Brahmaputra and he ended in
Murshidabad on the Ganges. No central influence and no honours
came his way.

He got his name into the English papers by having to send a
telegram about the Bhutan expedition in 1865. He received a
degree of honour for eminent proficiency in Bengali in i868<
He was made President of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1890.
He was mentioned by die Indian papers whenever he was passed
over for promotion. But otherwise his career in India was wholly
undistinguished. I have not found his name in any history of
India or in any of the biographies or personal memoirs of his
more successful colleagues. Of two of these colleagues it has

1 This article on “The Administration of Justice in Bengal/' published in the Calcutta
Review of October 1888, received an enthus Lurie column and a half notice in the
Englishman. “Mr. Beveridge goes into the subject with unsparing keenness and if logic
and sarcasm were capable of moving the powers that be, hi 3 paper might lead to some
substantial reform." The article was certainly the stuff to give to the troops, but was not
calculated to please the gene: Is.

381

MiN/sr^

India Called Them

something more in a No^_

of the conditions of worldly

worth while to say
Epilogue, in illustration
success.

It may be that my father was in some ways too fine an
instrument for the work he had to do, that a less delicate, more
cautious, mind would have made fewer mistakes. A man who
could wrice the letters diat he wrote could perhaps have done
better some other work than settling the fates of murderers and
thieves or deciding which of several witnesses with equal
readiness to lie for a friend or against an enemy was, for the
moment, finding it convenient to speak the truth. There were
in my father a capacity for sweet unreasonableness, a contempt
for expediency, and an impulsiveness which may from time to
time have led him astray. But the main explanation for his lack
of professional advancement was simply that he was too much
before his time.

His early years in India had ranked him firmly on the side of
Indian aspirations for self-government. He felt himself as an
alien ruler to be out of place. In season and out of season he
gave utterance to his views; he wished to bring about the self-
covernment of India as rapidly as possible, not as slowly as
possible. This did not mean that he thought a change to self-
government could be made at once.

He was anything but blind either to the achievements of
British rule or to the w eaknesses of Indian character, bred under
centuries of tyrannical or alien domination. At the beginning of
his General Remarks he maintained that the undoubted improve¬

ments in Bengal in the past eighty years w'ere due mainly to
British rule, and he punctured the glories claimed for Hindu
rulers past and present. “Pratapaditya, the King of Chandecan
or Jessors and the most famous and powerful of the so-called
‘twelve suns of Bengal’ seems from his biography to have been
a brutal tyrant who fell into his proper place when his conquerors
shut him up in an iron cage.” “It was my fortune some years ago
to be stationed at Kuch Behar for many months, so that I had
an opportunity of studying its history in the old records, etc.,
and I can confidently state that the condition of the^ worst-
administered district in Bengal is better than that of Kuch Behar
under its native Rajahs.” “Hindus, and Orientals in general,”

382

mpmLj

Epilogue

in one of his articles , 1 “are more than laudatores temp
They are laudator es temporis fictu . . .” “The besetting
sin of the Bengalees/’ as he wrote to my mother in one of his
first letters to her, “is that they will think and talk and talk and
think for ever but they will not act. But then that is the very
reason we are here for if Bengalees could only act half as well
as they talk there would be no need for us westerns to rule over
them. We must therefore take them as we find them and do our
best for them.”

My father was anything but blind, on the other side, to the
disadvantages of British rule. Referring to the destruction of
native weaving by importation of Manchester goods he wrote
that “English power was not always so beneficent as it now is,
and there was a time when our English laws, and still more our
English desire to make rapid fortunes wrought sad havoc in
Eastern Bengal.” This was then already in the past, but there
was a continuing weakness which my father emphasized.
“Considerable as has been the progress of the Bengal districts
under English rule, it would doubtless have been much greater
under more favourable circumstances. Probably the frequent
changes of officers have been the greatest obstacle to improve¬
ment.” My father supported this by a quotation from the
Lieutenant-Governor’s Administration Report for 1872-73,
mentioning the difficulties of the Government in resisting
pressure for continual change of station and describing the
constant flight from less healthy or less pleasant stations. From
this my father drew the moral “that we should endeavour to
place the internal administration of the country as much as
possible in the hands of natives. And in doing so, we should, I
think, not only appoint Bengalis to appointments in Bengal, but
should, other things being equal, give the preference to the
inhabitants of the district. . . . Bengal cannot afford to be
administered by foreigners, and die inhabitants of one part of
India are often almost as much foreigners in another part of it as
Europeans are.”

Finally, reflecting on this, he added a Note to the General
Remarks: “As I have said that Bengal cannot afford to be
administered by foreigners, it may perhaps be supposed that I

1 “The City of Patna” ( Calcutta Review, April 1883.)

383

India Called Them

ofte/of those who advocate the immediate abandoning
jfxby Great Britain. Such, however, is not the case,
ranted that we wrongfully got possession of India, still to
abandon her now would be to act like a man-stealer who should
kidnap a child, and then in a fit of repentance abandon him in a
tiger-jungle.” But my father always meant in practice what for
so many others was an empty' phrase, that the administration of
India should become Indian as soon as possible. He suggested as
one immediate step that nearly all judicial offices in Bengal
might be held by natives; as another “that no more appoint¬
ments should be made to the Indian Civil Service as at present
constituted or at least that the number should be greatly
restricted.”

This is the way that my father was writing more than seventy
years ago. This is the kind of evidence which, sixty years ago,
he gave to the Public Services Commission in India; he thought
no arrangement for recruiting the Service in future would be
satisfactory which did not include abolition of the examinations
in England. With that attitude he would certainly not appear a
safe man to those in authority, at a time when authority was being
challenged. And it so happened that his personal fate came for
decision at a time of growing strain, when racial feelings had
been embittered by the controversy over the Ubert Bill of 1883.
Just before that controversy he had held in Patna one of the most
coveted positions open to his rank. Annette had thrown all her
energy into making a social as well as a professional success of
this position. He went on furlough in 1883 with the hope of
returning to promotion. He returned in 1884 to find racial
feeling going from bad to worse and to feel himself solitary
between contending parties. The prophecy which he had made
to Annette in the days of his courtship, that “some day we shall
be found out as neither philo-English nor philo-Bengalees and
we shall fall to the ground,” was duly fulfilled. In place of
promotion or the chance of staying in the capital, he found him¬
self relegated to Faridpur in the Ganges marshes, next door
to Bakargenj. The curve of his professional career turned
downwards.

The curve of lhs happiness did not. I have used the words
“Faridpur Victory” to describe his and Annette’s time in

384

Epilogue

ur, because it illustrates completely the second moJ
little worldly success has to do with happiness. It was a
disappointment, of course, to my father not to be promoted.
It v/as a blow to my mother, bringing out her sister for Calcutta
gaieties, planning to conquer Calcutta as she had conquered
Patna, to find herself proceeding to a swamp. Yet both my father
and my mother came to look on their year at Faridpur as one
of the happiest in their lives. It was so because they made it so.
With the children in England and reduced from an absorbing
daily occupation to be the subjects of a monthly cheque and a
fortnightly letter, in a station with hardly any society, my
father and mother enjoyed a second honeymoon. In the present
diey needed nothing but one another and their books. For the
future, as the prospects of more important work in India faded,
their minds turned to England.

The very dullness of Faridpur gave them a golden opportunity
for saving. The roads were so bad that they had no need or use
for carriages. The establishment was cut down from the thirty-
nine of Bankipur to eighteen, less than the original twenty-one of
Rangpur. They set themselves to save for the children. There is
an unmistakable note of triumph in die balance sheet which my
modier entered in her account book for die first half of 1885.
This showed total receipts by Henry, Rs. 14,230; total expendi¬
ture, Rs. 9,261; “saved, 55 Rs. 4,969; that is to say, a third of the
whole.

My mother used to speak of her acceptance of Faridpur as a
victory. It was a victory because she and my fadier made it so.
They had so many resources in themselves diat they could draw
happiness even from dullness and relegation. As Fortune closed
one door she opened another. She commonly does so for those
with eyes to see.

The happiness of my father and mother was never seriously
affected by anything that happened outside dieir home. It was
affected continually by the separations and die sickness which
are die warp and woof of European life in India. Since the days
to which this book relates, there have been great improvements
both in transport, shortening journeys, and in die understanding
of ill-health, and particularly of the epidemic diseases of India.
As two recent historians of this country observe, “Until near the

385

mist^

India Called Them

J§l

ie nineteenth century sanitarians in India, as elsewj
'jwer^nghting these diseases in the dark.”

The cholera microbe was first recognized in 1883; my mother
was all but killed by it at Shillong, four years before. The plague
bacillus w'as identified in 1894 and the part played by fleas in
disseminating it was established in the course of the next twelve
years; fleas form a common theme of my mother’s letters from
Mussoorie in 1882. The anopheles mosquito was discovered as
the carrier of malaria in 1897; that was years after my parents
had struggled with recurrent attacks of fever in themselves and

their children.

In these matters there is knowledge where before there was
ignorance. But effective application of knowledge lingers.

India has a problem of ill-health on which nothing but a
revolution in housing and in sanitary practice, combined with
abandonment of many old customs, will make an impression.
The diseases which destroyed my brother’s mind and nearly
destroyed me, which weakened recurrently others of my family,
are not peculiar to Europeans. They waste Indian childhood and
Indian life at all ages. The care which my mother took about the
milk supply for her children she took because she was European
and my mother. Even as I began writing this Epilogue the
appalling nature of the milk supply to the Indian people generally
■was made plain by an official impartial Report.

India has a problem of poverty which she cannot hope to
solve finally without solving also her problem of population.
That she can do only by radical changes of marriage customs
and behaviour in marriage and, underlying this, a revolution in
the position of women. It will perhaps be found that this most
difficult revolution is the most necessary of all, for the sake both
of the Indian people themselves and of their friendly under¬
standing by other peoples.

In A Passage to India , one of Mr. E. M. Forster s Indian
characters remarks that he gives any Englishman two years to
learn that he cannot treat Indians on terms of equal friendship:

They come out intending to be gentlemen, and are told it will
not do. . . . And I give any Englishwoman six months.”
There is .1 reason for this difference, which does not lie in the
greater racial arrogance of women. It lies in the difierent position

386

misTf?,,

,§L

Epilogue

en, East and West. My motlier went to India atk
tion of Indian men to serve Indian women. Her first hosts
and friends in India were Indians, not English. She began by
disliking thoroughly the common attitude of superiority and
aloofness assumed by many Englishwomen of her time. She gave
much energy to breaking down racial barriers. She kept many
Indian friends all her life.

But there is no doubt that her feelings to the Indian people
changed, and that she lost her sense of brotherhood and sister¬
hood with them. “There are things and classes in India,” she
wrote to Henry after fifteen years diere, “which have brushed
out all my poetry about her people. If the sentiment still glows
in you, dear, I am glad.”

The light in Annette began to wane early, as soon as in her
first year she came to see where Indian men in the mass placed
Indian women in the mass. In the democracies of Western
Europe and of America women are now the equal partners of
men in political power and in nearly all that makes human life.
Till they are that in Eastern lands as well, West and East will
not understand one another.

Since I began this study of bygone India, writing in Britain,
events have moved fast in both countries. I began nearly two
years ago, when the ending of British rule in India, though in
prospect, was not certain, with no date fixed. I correct the last
proofs and date this Epilogue after watching the Indian In¬
dependence Bill in one day pass through all its stages in the
House of Lords. The great British adventure of rule in India
has reached its term.

The British rule that is ending lias conferred great benefits
upon India. That does not mean that the British have done or
have attempted all that they should. Even when die selfish
exploitation of earlier days was over and the interests of the
Indian people became the dominant consideration in framing
policy under British rule, that rule itself was in mam ways too
negative. It did not, to take one example, in allowing India to
start on the path of industrialization, make any attempt to prevent
industrialization from producing squalor and other social evils
for die many as well as wealth for some. It did not and, without

387

whist#

India Called Them ,

interference with social customs than is possible t<pj
government, it probably could not solve tlie problem of
population in India or raise the Indian people above want.

But it is at this moment of historical interest only either to
praise or to criticize the British rule of the past. India could not
become a healthy, happy country under British rule. With that
accepted, another negative of at least equal importance follows.
India cannot become healthy and happy simply by getting rid
of British rule. That by itself leads nowhere. Autocracy does not
become freedom by changing the colour of the autocrat.

My father, following his father, held that the prime object of
British rule in India should be to prepare the way for its own
extinction by bringing about an India that could combine
independence with internal order and material and spiritual
progress. The unsettled question to-day is whether or not such
an India has yet been brought into being. For lasting good
government we need not democracy simply but an educated
democracy.

The need and urgency of that are greater to-day than ever
because of the technical increase in the arts of administration.
The nations of Western Europe were self-governing, in the
sense of being independent of other nations, long before they
became democratic. They had substantially irremovable rulers.
But the rule of a despot in the past did not affect the daily lives
of his people or threaten die safety of other peoples, as it may
do to-day. There has been a technical progress in the arts of
government-—a development of the means of exercising power
over others—comparable to the technical progress in the arts of
destruction by war, and equally fraught with danger to mankind.

The free nations of Western Europe and North America had
the good fortune to pass out of autocracy into democracy before
this devel pment took place, that is to say, before the arts of
totalitarian self-perpetuating rule had been perfected. These
nations also have made some if insufficient and unequal progress
towards being educated to their responsibilities. India is in
pi n ess of passing from alien rule to rule from within at a time
when totalitarian technique has been developed and is practised
widely; at a ime when many of her people are still barely
literate Her future depends entirely on tile spirit of those who,

388

Epilogue

/circumstances, are called by accident or by their
to rule her teeming millions. Their opportunity is imrm
1so is their responsibility. Upon them it rests to make the
act of the British in leaving India to-day something different
from what, in my father’s words, it would have been seventy
years ago: the act of a kidnapper who, in a fit of remorse,
abandons die child he has stolen to die in a tiger-jungle.

I saw the letters which are the material of this book for the
first time fifteen years ago, after die deaths of my mother and
my father. I realized diat from the letters it would be possible
to present a picture from life of an age that has vanished and has
left no parallel. I said to myself that some dme I would try to draw
that picture. But I had no great hope then that the time would
ever come, absorbed as I was in my own work and personal
interests. Three years ago I gave up both an academic post and
a public office for a political career. Two years ago I lost
my political career without hope of recovery. At one moment
thereafter it seemed likely that I should visit India in person for
an absorbing urgent task, but that plan also failed. So I found
leisure to return to my father’s and mother’s letters, to go back
through their eyes and minds and hearts, through their aspira¬
tions and loves and sorrows, to bygone Bengal. When fortune
closes one door, she generally opens another.

July 1947

389

NOTE ON SOME CONTEMPORARIES OF
HENRY BEVERIDGE IN INDIA

A number of my father’s contemporaries in India whose successful
careers there have given rise to biographies or memoirs appear in his
letters. Of two in particular— Sir William Wilson Hunter, K.C.S.I.,
and Sir Henry Cotton, K.C.S.I. — something more may be said here,
by way of tracing the conditions of success in the India of the past.
Each of these two had some things in common widi my father, though
different things in the two cases. There was a third, an exact, con¬
temporary of my father— James Monro—of whom a few words may
fitly be said. In spirit as in age he was nearest of the three to my father.

William Hunter

Wiiliam Hunter, bom in July 1840 more than three years after my
father, came of similar parentage — Scottish middle class with little or
no Indian background; he was a clever boy attracted like my father
by the open door of competitive examination; he came out fifth in
1861, as my father had come out first in 1857; he reached India in
November 1862 and left it as a K.C.S.I. with twenty-five years of
service in March 1887.

The origins of William Hunter and Henry Beveridge were so
similar that there was actually a contact between them. William Hunter
on his first leave in 1867 went to stay at Eyemouth with my father’s
sister Maggie and her husband Stephen Bell; the Bells were friends of
the family of Mrs. Hunter. But William Hunter’s family background
was more prosperous than Henry Beveridge’s; his mother’s people—
woollen manufacturers at Hawick—were definitely rich; instead of
ha' ing to support his parents, he was able to look to continuing support
from them, in making the kind of career he wanted. This in his early
days was writing rather than administering India. He had, for every¬
thing but private letters, a readier and lighter pen than my father or
indeed than most of his colleagues, and turned this to admirable
account; his work in describing the conditions of Indian life, in
organizing the Gazetteer of India, and generally in bringing about
understanding of Indian problems was of the first quality.

But the real difference between these two young Scots—the one
who succeeded and the one who did not— was in aim and temperament.
My father was shy, critical of himself and of others, incautious,
ambitious oniv to serve. William Hunter at 22, in his early letters to
his betrothed, presents almost a caricature of the young Scot on the

390

MIN/Sr^j,

Some Contemporaries of Henry Beveridge in India

'ith achieving greatness as liis avowed aim and with com
raence that he would succeed in this.

§L

I aspire to a circle far above the circle of fashion — the circle
of power. . . .

I have not a moment’s doubt but that, if health be granted, I
shall make a great figure in India. . . .

It is a dreadful fate —that of a woman who takes away her
husband’s chance of greatness. . . .

Oh why were we both bom ambitious! . . .

This was William Hunter in youth. In his middle years, as is well
explained by his biographer, when attacked by enemies, William
Hunter foiled them by not at once rushing into die fray with them
on their chosen ground but biding his time. He had the courage needed
for taking the unpopular side, as he, like my father, did on the Ilbert
Bill. But when he found himself under attack, he was as canny as my
father was impulsive.

In his later years, William Hunter became naturally complacent
about the British achievement of his time. “Can we ever conciliate
India? This was the vital question to which the ablest administrators
deliberately answered No, in the India of the Company. It remains
the vital question to which we deliberately answer Yes, in the India
of the Queen. As a matter of fact the task of conciliation has been
accomplished.” So William Hunter wrote in 1891. Both Henry
Beveridge end Henry Cotton would have answered differently and
would have been nearer the truth. But blowing this trudi did not in
those days make for success.

Henry Cotton

Henry Cotton, born at Madras in September 1845, c ^me out 26th in
the examination of June 1865, 1 reached India more than two years later,
in October 1867, and left it on retirement in April 1902 with thirty-five
years of service. Before he left he was in the same camp as my father
on the racial issue. He came to be described by his opponents in the
Ilbert Bill controversy as a white babu,” and a slightly junior con¬
temporary of him and 0 / my father said of him: “I never met a man
more enthusiastic for Indians and their cause. . . . He loved them
‘not wisely but too well.”* 2

1 The competition of 1865 had developrd greatly since the t me right vears before
when my father entered. There were in TS65 nearly 300 competitors for the Indian Civil
Service and oi these 52 were successful; the tup man of that year was Charles James
Cyall. In 1857 when my father headed die list there were 60 competitors and only
were successful.

a Gerald Ritchie itt The Ritchies in India (p. 376).

39 1

MINIS

India Called Them

the point of view of making a successful career in spl
ry Cotton had two great advantages over my father. He 1
uurth, not the first, of his line in India. He was eight years younger
than my father, and came to India ten years later.

The great-grandfather and grandfather of Henry Cotton had both
in turn been Directors of the East India Company; his father had been
thirty years in the Indian Service. Though he came to India as a
competition wallah, he was Haileybury by birth; the old guard
in India were ready to welcome him and anxious to give him
a chance of doing well. Nor did he, as my father did, from the
beginning, feel or show' his Indian sympathies; they were a later
growth. 1

Henry Cotton had fine stuff in him and won his spurs. In his first
fifteen years his promotion went up by leaps and bounds. But then
there came a check. After 1882, as he said, he had no chance in Bengal
for many years and he was passed over by more than one of his juniors.
The reason was that he had identified himself with Lord Ripon’s
polic . , including the Ilbert Bill. “Sir Rivers Thompson, w'ho was the
Lieutenant-Governor for five years from the spring of 1882, w r as the
principal opponent of Lord Ripon’s policy. I could not expect pro¬

motion in that time.”

The five years of Sir Rivers Thompson from 1882 to 1887 were
the years which settled finally my father’s fate against liim; he was
one of the very few judges in Bengal who opposed the Lieutenant-
Governor. These years came when my father was near the end of his
time of service. For Henry Cotton they came and passed w'ben he
still had time to recover his place on the ladder of promotion under a
new Lieutenant-Governor. He did so and progressed in a climate
more sympathetic to his views, which also became steadily more
progressive. My father suffered, as my mother in another way had
done, for being too much before his times.

Henry Cotton was also before his times but less so. As Commis¬
sioner of Assam, he took a line as between the tea-planters and their
coolies, which, about 1900, made him highly unpopular not only with
the planters but with tin? Government of India. By this time, however,
Indian aspirations—focused in the National Congress which had met
for the first time in 1S85—had become highly vocal. Henry Beveridge
retired in 1893 all but unnoticed. Henry Cotton in 1902 retired amid
ovations from Indians wherever he w'ent. On his last official joumey
he was met by crowded deputations at every raihvay station; at
Be>mbay, as he wro< c , “I was simply swept away by the wave of popular

* See p. 40 above.

392

'ome Contemporaries of Henry Beveridge in India
;ni Ircm men with whom I had never had personal relatio

ars later in 1904 lie was called back to be President of the
tfentieth National Congress. Sir Henry Cotton, K.C.S.I., was
honoured both by the Government of India and by the Indian
nationalists. Henry Beveridge came and went too soon to be noticed
by ei tlier.

James Monro

James Monro was of the same vintage as Henry Beveridge. Entering
ftom the University of Edinburgh for the same examination as my
father in August 1857, he came out third. The two young Scots went
to India almost together. But James Monro, disagreeing violently with
some of the policies of Lord Ripon, retired in 1883 on completing his
25 years of service and thereafter had a somewhat unusual interlude
g{ public office in England, being appointed Commissioner of the
Metropolitan Police. In that capacity he dealt firmly with disorders
during the gieat strikes of dock-labourers and gas-workers in 1889.
But India was burnt into his bones as into my father’s. In the nineties
he returned to India to establish at Ranaghat the Medical Mission
where my father visited him in January 1900 and sat down sixteen to
dinner^with him and his helping family. The Mission was James
Monro s way of continuing work for India; study of India’s history
and culture was my father’s way.

The paths of my father, of William Hunter, and of Henry Cotton
crossed more than once in India. In the tragic pilgrimage mentioned
below, which William Hunter once made with wife and children in
search of health for one of them, the whole party stayed with my
father at Barisal; when, many years later, my father went to Birbhum
he spoke of it as being illuminated by the genius of a Hunter. Henry
° tton ^ dS ° ne the few people who witnessed my parents’ marriage
jefoie t e egistrar in Larkins Lane; he shared with my father an
interest in Positivism and once got a subscription from my father for
a memorial to Dr. Congreve; the two saw a good deal of one another
( unng t le eighties in Calcutta when both were under a cloud; they
were fellow-travellers to India in 1890 and my father told ray mother
all about Henry Cotton’s walking tour with his three sons in Switzer¬
land and its total cost. Both William Hunter and Henry Cotton are
mentioned appreciatively in a number of my father’s letters. His own
name does not appear either in the full-length biography of
William Hunter by a fellow-civilian or in the many letters quoted
there, and it docs not appear in Henry Cotton’s memoirs, in all

393

India Called Them

y names of friends and colleagues whom he rejol

<SL

: more personal difference between my father and these younger
contemporaries remains to be noted. My father, in 1857, was shot out
to India in the month after he had passed his examination; he went
alone and he spent ten lonely years before he saw Scotland again.
William Hunter, in 1861-62, had his year of probation and training at
home; he went out engaged to be married, was married at the end of
his first year of service, and came back for his first leave in five years.
Henry Cotton, after the competitive examination, had “two golden
years” at home with an assured career ahead of him; at 22, he found
and took a wife out with him—a girl of 18.

Yet all three, successful and unsuccessful, had one common
experience of broken family life. Though Henry Cotton took his
wife with him to India, she did not stay with him long; after six
years, with two children, she came home and she stayed at home.
Henry Cotton did not lose any children to India, but in the last twenty-
eight years of his service there he saw his wife and children only in
rare times of furlough; safety for them was bought by separation.
William Hunter, in 1870, lost his second son Brian through fever at
2 years of age; the moving account, given in his biography, 2 of how
for two months the distracted parents wandered with their three
children throughout Bengal in search of healthier surroundings for
the sick one, has something in common with the story of my younger

brother.

My mother, in the graveyard in Mussoorie, found the tombs of so
many children sending terror to her heart. India is full of British
children’s tombs.

1 See Life of Sir William Wilson Hunter by F. H. Skrine (Longmans Green & Co.,
1901) and Indian end Home A iemories, by Sir Henry Cotton, K.C.S.I. ( 1. Fisher Unwin,
3911). Another volume of Indian reminiscences in which I have looked in vain for my
father’s name is The Ritchies in India , by Gerald Ritchie (John Murray, 1920). Yet the
author was in Darjeeling at the time when we were living there in 1888, and in Berham-
pore, just before my father went there in 1891, and mentions in both places many people
who appear in my parents’ letters,
a Op. cit. y pp. 189-92,

394

<SL

POSTSCRIPT ON JEANIE

le day after I had corrected and returned the proofs of this volume,
I received from Mrs. Shelley, whose help is acknowledged below, my
father’s letter to her grandmother, Mrs. Goldie, in December 1869,
announcing his engagement. With this letter Mrs. Shelley sent also
the one thing that survives from Jeanie’s hand—a letter written by
her from Barisal in December 1872, the month before she died, to her
youngest sister—Ella Lucy—then a child. In this Jeanie signs herself
as such; after marriage she was no longer Janie. She talks of Henry
as pleased because he had got his steamer from Mr. Campbell; she
talks of Mrs. Goldie as about to arrive.

Henry’s new letter confirms all that I had surmised in Chapter IV
—that this engagement did not come till Henry was on the point of
going back to India again and that he regarded Jeanie—he still called
her Janie then—as free to change her mind. How Jeanie—then barely
turned sixteen—came to visit London is not clear. One can surmise
only that this was an expedition arranged by Henry and the two
families so that Jeanie might have the chance of making up her mind.

57 Maida Vale
19 December /<$9

My dear Mrs. Goldie,

You must excuse my writing to you on a Sunday but I find
that Janie told you all on Friday night and so I hasten to confirm her
news. I could not write yesterday for we were out all day and didn’t
come home till half-past ten at night. Yes, the dear little lassie has
agreed to take me and to wait for me for two years. I am sure I do
not know what I have done to deserve so much happiness and I some¬
times almost fear that I may have taken advantage of her soft and
tender nature and got her to bestow her affections on me before she
fully knows the value of such love as hers. And yet I hardly think so
either for Janie is not one of these giddy-brained girls whose heads
can be turned by a few attentions from the first man they meet and
now that we ^re engaged I have perfect confidence that she won t
forget me or grow indifferent during the many months of absence that
are about to commence. I have told her however and I now tell you
that if she ever find out that she has mistaken her feelings and repent
of what she has said I hope she will not hesitate to say so and I will
release her from her engagement for I would abhor myself if any
selfishness on my part were to injure her happiness. Meanwhile I will
try to do all I can to justify the trust which she and all of you have

395

India Called Them

me and to make up to her for the sacrifices she will in,
ig her home.

Poor thing, I wish that you were here with her and it is most
natural that she should have written and asked you to have her taken
home direct. However she is willing now to stop at Eyemouth on the
way and though I have offered to take her straight down to Edinburgh
she says now she would like to see Maggie and I am sure that except
in her own home there is no place where she will meet more sympathy
than in the Eyemouth Manse. We intend therefore going down to
Berwick on the Wednesday and from thence driving out to Eyemouth.
Maggie’s great festival is the 24th and if you and Mrs. Howison do not
object we will stay for it and come in on the Christmas Day in time
for the dinner Mrs. Howison was kind enough to invite me to.

We called on Mrs. Gray yesterday and she was kind enough to ask
us for our tea for tomorrow evening. I will also take Janie over
tomorrow at 4 to Miss Walker who wants to see her and who is in
distress at the death of her sister.

With kindest regards to Dr. Goldie, Mrs. Howison and yourself.
Believe me
My dear Mrs. Goldie

Yours very sincerely

H. Beveridge.

The letter of December 19, 1869, is Henry all over and forms a
fitting end to the substance of this volume.

ILLUSTRATIONS, PERSONS AND PLACES

My younger sister, now Mrs. R. H. Tawney, who appears in this
book as Annette Jeanie, Jeannette, or Tutu, has contributed many
personal reminiscences, the title chosen for the book and the painting
of my mother as a child which has been used as cover. A number of
the letters used here were written to her.

My cousin Millicent Dick, grand-daughter of Robert, the youngest
child of David and Margaret Beveridge of Dunfermline, has provided
me with most of the early letters used here; apart from her I had
nothing of David or Margaret or of their son Henry of Inzievar, my
grandfather.

My cousin John Beveridge, grandson of Erskine I, fifth child of
David and Margaret, has provided me with letters and information to
supplement the privately printed account of the Beveridge family for
whose compilation his father Erskine II was responsible. He is also
the owner of the portraits of David and Margaret, commissioned by
Erskine I and reproduced here.

My cousin and step-daughter Elspeth Christian Mair, now Mrs.
Richard Stanley Bum, great-grand-daughter of David Beveridge ot
Dumfries, copied many of Henry and Annette’s letters for me.

From my cousin Mrs. Gwendolen Barringer, of Stirling West,
South Australia, and from two other cousins with whom she put me
in touch in South Australia—Stanley Beveridge Price, of Lower
Mitcham, and Lewis Vence Jones, of Toorak Gardens—I have
obtained information as to the numerous descendants in Australia
and New Zealand of my great-aunt Elizabeth Beveridge, who married
James Adamson, the wright of Crossgates, and who was the great-
grand-mother of my three informants.

To Mrs. Shelley, now of Edinburgh, born Claudia Davidson and
daughter of Ella Lucy Goldie, Jeanie’s younger sister, I am indebted
for the letter written by my father to Mrs. Goldie announcing his
engagement to Jeanie, and also for the letter written by Jeanie from
Barisal to Ella Lucy as a child. Both these letters are noted in the
Postscript on Jeanie.

For my knowledge of William Akroyd’s public career I am indebted
almost wholly to the Palfrey' Collections , that is to say, the many
volumes of Press cuttings and other printed and MS. material for the
history of the Western Midlands assembled by Mr. H E. Palfrey at
Stourbridge.

For such knowledge as I have of my mother’s mother, Sarah

397

India Called Them

, and her father, and for some personal reminisceno
Akroyd, I am indebted to my cousin, Henry Walford, for¬
merly of Stourbridge, now living at Herne Bay.

From my cousin Oliver Danson North, elder son of my mother’s
half-sister Kate Lloyd, I have obtained a number of references to
relations on that side.

GLOSSARIES

My father’s and mother’s letters contain many words and phrases
of languages other than English — Hindustani, Bengali, Latin, French,
German —which they used to one another as part of their natural way
of writing. I have printed these in the same type as the rest of the
letters, as my father and mother wrote them, using italics in the letters
only where the writers underlined for emphasis. 1 have given trans¬
lations of most of the foreign words in Glossaries. Many Hindustani
words, like ayah, nabob, tonga, have become so far part of the English
language as to be included in popular dictionaries, such as Chambers*
and Odhams’, and for these words I have as a rule used the inter¬
pretations given in one or other of these dictionaries, printing the
words themselves in roman letters in the Glossary, while putting
other Hindustani or Bengali words in italics. The Hindustani words
I have arranged alphabetically; the other foreign words according to
the chapters in which they appear.

In the spelling of some of these words and of place-names there is
considerable variety in the letters; my father wrote usually Rungpore
and Bankipore, while my mother wrote usually Rangpur and Bankipur;
these latter naturally appeared on any printed stationery which she
obtained for Henry’s use. I have made the spelling uniform throughout,
on the lines of The Times Atlas , except in a few cases where I have left
an old spelling, e.g. “Burrasaul” in one of Phemie’s letters, as an
indication of strangeness. I have adopted a uniform numerical dating
of the letters, except where there seemed special reason for preserving
the original form.

In his letters my father seldom used commas or question-marks; I
have inserted commas only where this seemed necessary to avoid
ambiguity; I have more commonly inserted question marks. I have

I rimed capitals as he used them, so far as I was able to be sure whether
he meant capitals or not. I have varied the spelling of personal names
as he varied them*

Chapter LATIN

II omne i^notum pro magnifico the unknown is always the most

admired (Tacitus: Agricola 30).

398

Glossary

VII

VIII

IX
IX
IX
IX

XII

XIII

XIV

XVI

XVIII

an me ludit amabilis, etc.

damnosa rapes
ad hue sub judice lis est
facta haud verba
solvitur ambulando

quae cum ita sunt
pater semper incertus
locum tenens
panem et somnum
malleus munimentorum

amavimus amamus amabimus
De Constantia Sapientis
factum valet quod non fieri debuit

magnum confecimus aequor
O dura ilia causidicorum

totus teres atque rotundus

mutatis mutandis
Bona Dea

rarae aves

non mihi tantam componcre litem
lacunae

Tros Tyriusque mihi nullo dis-
crimine agetur

modus vivendi
reductio ad absurdum

justum et tenacem propositi virum

<SL

What pleasing frenzy cheats my

ears and eyes!

I seem to wander through sacred
groves where gracious streams
and airs are visitors,
harmful rock.

The case is still before the Court,
deeds not words,
it is solved by walking. (The
question whether a tiling can be
done is answered by doing it.)
Since these tilings are so.
the father is always uncertain,
a deputy,
bread and sleep.

Hammer of the Records. (Adapta¬
tion of “Malleus Hereticorum, ,! “ a
name given to Johann Faber for
his attack on heretics, and of
“Malleus Maleficarum,” a book
against witches.)

w r e have loved, we love, we shall
love.

The constancy of the wise. (Title
of book by Seneca.)
a thing which should never have
been done, is valid when it has

been done.

we have traversed a vast space of
sea.

Oh hard thews of pleaders.
(Adaptation of Aeneas* address
to his much-enduring crew.)
a man polished, complete and
rounded.

with necessary changes.

old Roman deity of fruitfulness,

the celebration of whose rites was

confined to women.

rare birds (i.e. unusual persons).

It is not for me to settle so great

an issue.

gaps.

Trojan and Tyrian shall be
treated alike by me. (Dido’s offer
to Aeneas when urging him to
settle at Carthage. Virgil: Aencid
I. 576.)

a working agreement (,literally
way of living).

reduction to absurdity (a mode
of proof much favoured by

Euclid).

A man upright and tenacious of
purpose.

399

India Called Them

cruore nostro
laudatores temporis acti
laudatores temporis ficti

<SL

(bathed) in our blood
Praisers of things that were,
Praisers of things that never were,

Chapter

VII

XII

VII

XII

FRENCH

eau sucre
t6te-&-tete

au bout des ongles

fieur de lys
bon vivant

n’importe
cause cdlebre
maitresse femme
tres gentil
petit maitre

il y a question de femmes

GERMAN

Kennst du das Land

eine fiirchterliche Fortschrittung

Das Gute liegt so nahe

zu frei

gleichgiiltig

Dreieiniger Gott

wunderschon

philosophiert

allerlicbste Fraulein

Hosentrager

sugared water.

a confidential chat between two
people alone.

(a woman) to her finger-tips
(literally to the end of her nails),
lily.

a jovial companion: one who lives
well.

no matter.

a peculiarly notable trial,
domineering woman.
very polite.

something between a pedant and
a prig.

women come into the case.

“Knowest thou the land.’*
alarming advance,
the good lies so near to us.
too free,
casual, careless.

Triune God.
wonderfully beautiful,
philosophises.

most beloved miss (i.e. gover¬
ness),
braces.

HINDUSTANI

Words sufficiently anglicised to appear in dictionaries of the English
language are printed in roman type. The spelling is that used by my
father or mother. Two Bengali words are included here for convenience.

Accha: good.

Almirak : wardrobe.

Am mammako pia karta: a child's greeting to her mother implying a desire to
be cuddled,

Anna: an Indian coin, the sixteenth part of a rupee.

Ayah: a native Indian waiting-maid or nurse-maid.

Bacha: small.

Bakshish: Backsheesh: a gift or present of money in the East; a gratuity or tip.

Banian or banyan: a Hindu trader, esp. from Guzerat, and loosely, out of India,
any Hindu: a native Indian broker or financier.

Bawachi\ cook.

Bhangi or bahangi : bamboo stick with ropes hanging from eacn end to carry
buckets or packages, placed across shoulder.

Bheestic: a water-carrier.

Bil or Bhil : water course.

Birohvernal (Bengali): fire of separation.

Chnrpoy: the common Indian bedstead, sometimes handsomely wrought and
painted.

400

tyj ah eartlien pot.
War/ watchman.

Glossary

^Gho^a. boy in garden or house.

Chota ha^ree: small breakfast.

Chuprassi: office messenger.

Chur : a strip ofland.

Cutcherry: a courthouse.

Dak: the mail-post, or post office.

Dangat: kind of official.

Dandy: an open palanquin.

Darwan or Durwan: doorkeeper. Used also for steward.

Dhobi: an Indian washerman.

Dhootie: loin-cloth.

Dirzi or Durzee: tailor.

Doolie or Dhooly: a covered litter.

Ghaut: Ghat: a mountain-pass; landing-stairs for bathers in river or tank.
Godown: a store for goods. Used also as servants* quarters.

Golmal : disturbance.

Jampan: a sedan-chair borne on bamboo poles by four bearers.

Khal: a creek.

Khansamah: butler.

Khitmutgar: a table-servant.

Lao : come, or give.

Mali : gardener.

Manjhis: master of a vessel.

Masalchi: a table or kitchen servant employed to clean plates, etc. Also a lamp
or torch-bearer.

Maund: a measure of weight in India, its value varying in different places from
about 25 to about 85 pounds avoirdupois.

Maulvi: teacher or expounder of Mahomedan law.

Mehta: sweeper.

Mis tree: carpenter.

Morah : wicker stool.

Munsiff: an official.

Nabob: a deputy or governor under the Mogul Empire: a European who has
enriched himself in the East.

Nazir: a native official in the Anglo-Indian court who serves summonses.

Palki: Palkce: a palanquin.

Pice: a copper coin— j anna.

Pipul: the sacred fig-tree; also Pipal, Pippul-tree, Peepul-tree.

Puggaree: scarf worn round the hat to keep off the sun.

Puja: rites of Hindu worship. Durga-Puja: a ten days* Hindu festival at the
autumnal equinox in honour of Durga, w*ife of Siva the Destroyer. An
occasion for annual holidays.

Pukka: first-class, genuine.

Pundit: a person who is learned in the language, science, laws and religion of
India; any learned man.

Punkah: Punka: a large fan for cooling the air of an Indian house, consisting of
a light framework covered with cloth and suspended from the ceiiing of a
room, worked by pulling a cord or by machinery.

Ranee: A Hindu queen or princess.

Re{ai: bed or rug.

Rupee: a standard silver coin of India originally worth 2/-, wordi about 1/4
from 1897 to 1920.

Ryot: a Hindu cultivator or peasant.

Sari: a Hindu woman's chief garment, consisting of a long piece of silk or cotton
cl jth wrapped round the middle.

401

India Called Them

<SL

weight of about 2 lb., used also as a measure of milk,
conveyance of some kind.
utuschil (Bengali): cowardice as of a camel.

Sirdar: a chief or head; a major-domo.

Syce: Sice: a groom.

Taktaposh : a covered stage or platform of planks.

Tamasha: an entertainment, show.

Tana orThana: police-station.

Tehsildar : rent collector.

Ticca gharry : cab for hire.

Tom-tom: kind of carriage.

Tonga: a light two-wheeled cart for four in use in India.

Vakil: Vakeel: a native attorney or agent in the East Indies.

Wallah: Walla: a fellow. Competition wallah: a term applied in Anglo-Indian
colloquial speech to a member of the Civil Service who obtained appoint¬
ment by the competitive system instituted in 1855.

NOTE ON ILLUSTRATIONS

Tlie cover, representing Annette Akroycl in early childhood with
a dog, is from a water-colour given by Annette’s sister Fanny to
Annette’s daughter Annette Jeanie (Tutu) on the occasion of her
marriage to Richard Henry Tawney in June 1909.

The frontispiece represents Henry and Annette in March 1875, j ust
before their marriage in Calcutta.

The photographs of Henry’s grand-parents David Beveridge and
his wife Margaret Thomson at p. 22 are from paintings made on
ihe order of their son Erskine about 1829 and now in the possession
of Erskine’s grandson John. The paintings are referred to by Jemima
Beveridge at p. 2c.

Jeanie (p. 54). Date uncertain but no doubt about the time of her
marriage in 1871, when she was 17.

jeanie’s Indian Home (p. 55). This is the Judge’s House in Barisal
described in Ch. IV.

William Akroyd (p. 86). Date uncertain but presumably about
1865 when he would be just over 60.

Annette fp. 87). This is from a medallion made in 1865 when she
was 22. The medallion was given by her to her son William and has
figured in many photographs of him.

Miss Akroyd’s School (p. x 18). This was taken in March 1875, ) ust
before Annette’s marriage. One at least of those in the front row is a
mistress. Some of the girls appear to have adopted the hybrid costume
proposed by Annette (p. 90 ;z.).

Henry (p. 150). This is the earliest surviving portrait, of date
uncertain, but probably between the death of Jeanie and before nis
meeting with Annette.

Judge’s House, Bankipur (p. 214). This was Henry and Annette’s

402

Note on Persons

•listing home in India—for 3^ years from December 183)
1883.

Trio at Southport (p. 246). Taken in May 1885, when the three
children were 8, 6 and 4^.

Jemima at 88 (p. 278). Probably taken during the family’s stay at
Keavil 1883-84 in Jemima’s 89th year.

Herman Beveridge (p. 310). This is an enlargement of Herman
from a group of the family taken by Henry Turner at Ilfracombe in
July 1890 when Herman was 4§ years old.

Pitfold, Hindhead (p. 342). This shows the new front, with porch
and tower designed and built by Annette in 1900. On the left is the
gardener’s cottage in which Henry and Annette spent most of World
War I.

1 he Beresford portraits of Annette and Henry at pp. 374-75 were
taken during a stay in their son’s house in London, in 1913.

NOTE ON PERSONS

Brief particulars are given here cf some of the people particularly
mentioned in this volume. They are g sample of what has gone to
the making of India under British occupation: Indians and English;
religious reformers, lawyers, administrators, scholars, judges; servants
of the East India Company from Hailey bury and 4 ‘competition
wallahs” of the I.C.S.; men appointed to high office, judicial or
administrative, direct from Britain; men who made great careers and
men who did not; David Hare, whom my father described as unique;
men whom India caught and men to whom she remained eternally
alien.

The notes include two women only —Emily Phear and Elizabeth
Adelaide Manning; India has not been a place where women have
played much part hitherto. But there are two other women who might
be in the notes if more particulars were known of them. There was
the bountiful Maharani Sumamoye (one of the supporters of Miss
Akioyd s school). There was Roma Bai, who set herself to get better
care tor mothers in childbirth and whom both Henry and Annette
befriended; in the end she came to grief and Henry in one of his
letters included her (with Annie Goldie, Nellie Akroyd and Fraulein
Cause) in a list of four young women with whom “alas—none of our
experiments have been successful. But for all that let us persevere and
not sink into cynicism.” (19/6/88).

In preparing these notes I have naturally had recourse among other
authorities to the Dictionary of Indian Biography , published by C. E.
Buckland in 1906. Comments placed' in quotation marks without
‘ 4 her source named are from this dictionary.

403

India Called Them

LI, SyaD

> 6/4/49. Barrister Inner Temple 1873, practised in Calcutta^!
x Court; Magistrate 1878- ; Judge in Calcutta High Court
1890-1904. Strong advocate of English education and education
of Indian women. Mahomedan. Author of numerous books and
articles. Married an Englishwoman.

Banerji, Sir Guru Das

b. 26/1/44. Law Lecturer and Barrister practising in Calcutta High
Court 1872- ; Judge in High Court 1888- ; Vice-Chancellor
of

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